


Let Me In

by luxurywounds



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Animated GIFs, BAMF Bucky Barnes, Blood Drinking, Blood and Gore, Bottom Steve Rogers, Boys In Love, Brock Rumlow is scapegoat for bad character, Bucky Barnes Feels, Bucky Barnes Has a Big Dick, Bucky Doesn't Care, Bucky Loves Steve More Than Anything, Bucky kills people, Bucky looks a lot like CA: TFA Bucky, Bucky looks seventeen but is like 100 years old, Bullying, But not in a sexual way - Freeform, Child Neglect, Childhood Trauma, Consensual Underage Sex, Daddy Issues, First Kiss, Fluff and Smut, Forced Feminization, Gay Sex, Human/Vampire Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, I'm sorry there's a lot of world-building, Internalized Homophobia, It happens enough where I feel like I have to tag it, Loss of Virginity, M/M, Minor Character Death, Mutual Masturbation, Oops, Peeing of pants, Pet Names, Porn With Plot, Porn comes to those who wait, Possessive Bucky Barnes, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Protective Bucky Barnes, Religious Guilt, Revenge, Sarah Rogers Isn't The Best In This One, Sharing a Bed, Shy Steve Rogers, Size Difference, Slow Burn, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug, Steve is 15, Steve's Parents Are Going Through A Divorce, Tags May Change, Top Bucky Barnes, Vampires, Vomiting, boy next door, boys crying, do with that what you want, i'll be by the pool, now!! crazy right, on Steve's part, sorry - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-15
Updated: 2021-02-06
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:14:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 9
Words: 34,560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27960626
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luxurywounds/pseuds/luxurywounds
Summary: Innocence dies. James doesn't.Steve Rogers feels completely and utterly alone. His parents are going through a nasty divorce, fighting each other tooth and nail on every possible thing, and Brock and his friends make Steve's life a living hell at school. The only thing that makes his life bearable is the mysterious boy who goes by the name of Bucky that just moved in the apartment next door with his father. However, everything about Bucky isn't as great as it seems, either. He only goes out at night, walks barefoot in the snow, and doesn't go to school. Even worse, Steve can't help himself becoming more entranced by the boy every day, and Bucky has secrets that touch directly on the police investigation going on about missing persons in their town.Based on John Ajvide Lindqvist'sLet the Right One Inand the screenplay from Matt Reeves
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Comments: 23
Kudos: 75





	1. Never Be

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I'm ashamed of it. I'm sick of it. I'm sick of not having the courage to be an absolute nobody. I'm sick of myself and everybody else that wants to make some kind of a splash." - J.D. Salinger

They had another stupid drug assembly today in the auditorium. Steve figured out in his head that it was the third one they had been forced to sit through since school started this fall. It was the same as all the other ones, too, with an officer from the Los Alamos police station standing on the stage in full uniform and leaning against a white plastic table that had several plastic baggies on it with contents resembling drugs such as cocaine, marijuana, and heroin. At least, Steve was pretty sure that what was in the bags was fake. They didn't pass the bags around the auditorium anymore after the one supposedly containing marijuana had gone missing during the presentation one year, so who knows if it was the real thing or simply herbs and spices sprinkled into a Ziploc that someone had the pleasure of trying to smoke with their friends. A slideshow played in the background during as well, bulleting side-effects in bold like dizziness, restlessness, shaking, and irregular heartbeat. He knew that it was bad in their community, there being a news report of a dealer being busted in the tunnel or a related incident almost every two weeks, but Steve himself shouldn't have to listen to the presentation. He would never touch the stuff, and a big part of that was that if he tried to he would probably spontaneous combust with how frail and weak he already was in his current state. Just the tiniest bit of marijuana would probably stop his heart for good. Besides, doing drugs was no doubt a sin. So, accordingly, he sat back in the uncomfortable seat with the hard back and watched blearily, presentation fading in and out of focus as he compared the crack to light and crisp winter snow and the marijuana to the mossy shrubs that used to sit in front of their old neighbor Ms. Richardson's house. 

After the lecture had finished Steve must've still been groggy because it was easier for Brock Rumlow to catch him off guard and trip him in the hallway than it usually was. Usually he knew better as to look around at who was surrounding him and make sure that he and his familiar friends weren't able to get within grabbing distance of him, but not today. He went spilling to the floor outside the doors of the auditorium with a loud " _oof" ,_ the wind being virtually knocked out of him. To make matters worse, he hadn't taken his inhaler, instead opting to leave it in his locker across the school because he doubted that he would need it. The collective dirt from the muddy shoes of students stained the new polo that his mother had gotten him two weeks ago at the mall. As he went down Steve could vaguely hear the catty laughter from Brock and his friends and from various surrounding classmates as he tried in vain to gulp fresh air into his lungs. Embarrassingly, he ended up having to go to the nurse's office even after he had gotten back to his inhaler and took a few puffs. That visit consisted of Steve begging the nurse to not call and bother his mom at work because of it. She finally gave in, but not before making him promise that he would tell his mom right away when he got home from school. Steve would have to pray for forgiveness for that one. 

He was reflecting on his day in the snowy courtyard outside of their apartment building in Los Alamos, bundled up in his gray puffer jacket and puff ball hat that had a black and blue zigzag pattern across it. His grandmother had gotten it for him nearly two years ago and he couldn't bear to part with it, especially since she passed away in that time from some sort of cancer that Steve wasn't made privy to by either his mother or father. His gloves were laid out next to him on the sort of jungle-gym contraption he usually sat on, a conglomerate of green bars and edges that resembled a sort of modernly-designed pyramid you would find in a magazine for architects. Steve didn't have them on because he was currently unwrapping and eating his stash of Now and Later chews that he kept in the bottom drawer of his dresser, humming the catchy theme song as he did so. _"Eat some now, save some for later..."_ He bought them from the mini-mart around the corner, Zoch's, usually whenever he had a bad day at school, which was a common occurrence and left no shortage of sweets. 

"Steven!" His mother's voice rang out from the small wooden deck connected to their upstairs apartment that had too many scratches and spots of discoloration for her liking. 

"What?" He petulantly yelled back around the last cherry-flavored Now and Later that was in his mouth. It was sticking too much to his upper molars so he tried to lave them with his pointed tongue while he waited for her response. 

"Dinner's ready." Steve then hurriedly gathered all of the multi-colored wrappers together that he discarded in the space between his feet and pushed snow over them with the ridged soles of his black winter boots, effectively getting rid of all the evidence as much as a sheltered fifteen year old boy would believe is satisfactory when hiding his misdeeds. When he trotted up to their apartment and came in through the door Steve realized that he forgot to put his gloves back on so his hands were an angry pink and cold to the touch. Sarah, his mother, must've obviously noticed but instead opted to say nothing, handing him a plate of chicken and greens after he had gotten all of his winter clothing off. Steve's cheeks were rosy and burning with heat so he couldn't help but to rest his palms upon them, turning over his hands occasionally for a different feeling from each side as if he was one of the nurses who took his temperature when a bout of feverishness hit. As she was pouring a new glass of wine for herself to have with dinner Sarah questioned him. "Now, I know you didn't spoil your dinner already, did you, Steven?"

He immediately started to protest her inquiry but was quickly cut off by the sound of the telephone ringing on the hook. His mother huffed and walked over to answer it, glass of wine now in hand. Steve didn't know who was calling at first, but bits and pieces of his mother' s responses made it clear that it was not a conversation she was wanting to have soon enough. "Hello?...What do you want?...We're in the middle of dinner...We already talked about this, Joseph..." Eventually Sarah Rogers figured it was better to switch out her glass for the whole bottle of wine and moved towards her bedroom to finish the conversation on the landline in there, leaving Steve alone at the table poking at his chicken with cold fingers and furrowed brows. "Don't forget to say grace," she reminded him.

Following dinner he retreated to his bedroom and closed the door in an attempt to drown out the muffled yelling and crying coming from his mother's room. Steve had tried to go in and comfort her once, but that turned out to be the wrong decision; she had ended up shoving him away, yelling at him to get out and bursting into more tears. He just did his best to ignore it, now. The shirt went first, one of Dad's baggy old ones that Steve changed into when he got home from school so Sarah wouldn't see his ruined polo. As he stared at himself in the mirror propped against his wall he ran a tentative hand down the flat plane of his stomach. There were no abs to be felt or seen and he knew that if he breathed in enough his prominent ribs would be on full display to poke and prod. His body definitely didn't look like the other male ones in his grade. Brock said that he was a baby girl that hadn't gotten her tits yet, and that's why he flicked his overly sensitive nipples every chance he got to "start the process". Steve went to do the same so he could see himself doing it in the mirror to his own body and recoiled immediately, the tip of his nipple turning into a hard, delicate nub. He didn't know what he had wanted to get out of it. Maybe he thought it would be different if he was the one controlling the action instead of Brock, but to no avail. So, he went for the good old hunting knife hidden in the floorboard nearest to the window instead and held it out in front of him in the mirror, a snarl on his face. "Hey, little girl," he growled menacingly to the best of his ability. "Are you scared?" The knife glinted in the light provided from the dimming ceiling light, almost having a holographic quality to it. Steve jabbed it a little in front of him, slicing through air. It would be better if he had a mask to complete the picture, his pale and delicate face too soft, but what he had now would have to do for his fantasy of being the one in charge for once. Being the one who others were scared of and didn't mess around with for fear of dire consequences being dealt if provoked.

He stood that way in front of the mirror for a while, trying to hunch his shoulders up to appear bigger and flex the muscles of his chest that he didn't have while handling the knife. What broke him out of his revelry was the sound of loud rock music being played from one of the apartments across the way on the other side of the courtyard, no doubt Mr. Sherman's. When Steve put the knife back under the floorboard and went to his telescope in front of his window that he had received for Christmas three years ago and looked out of it, sure enough, there was the image of Mr. Sherman curling a dumbbell while kneeling on a expensive piece of workout equipment, his stereo lit up with fancy lights to show that it was playing music. He worked out often and was a man of intimidating stature that Steve wished he could bloom into instantaneously. Steve knew he worked out a lot (besides from his bulky form) because he watched him from time to time through his open apartment window, as he did other residents of the complex. There was a niggling voice at the back of his mind that said it was creepy and showed that he was truly pathetic, but Steve couldn't find the energy to care. He enjoyed looking at what interesting things other people were doing in their everyday lives and imagined himself doing them as well, being apart of a collective group that basked in each other's company. Picturing himself in their activities helped numb the dull, painful throb that came from not doing anything worthwhile or having anyone particularly close in his life as of late. Steve turned the telescope to the right, in return getting a view into the Phillips household. Anders Phillips was a well-off man who worked as a salesperson at one of the local car dealerships downtown and had a beautiful wife, Solana, of six months who Steve had heard was a Puerto Rican immigrant from his mother. Sarah Rogers had also said to one of her friends on the phone one time that she was pretty sure she married him just for his money and for a green card, but Steve hadn't known what that meant. 

Mr. and Mrs. Phillips seemed to be arguing. She was sitting on the couch with her mouth open and arms crossed and he was standing in front of her pointing an accusatory finger in her face. Mrs. Phillips then arose from the couch and shoved past Mr. Phillips, assumedly heading for the door. He must've said something important to her, though, because she suddenly stopped in her tracks and slowly turned back to him. Anders held out a hand for Solana to take and she obliged, letting herself be led back to the couch and allowing him to cradle her face in his hands for a few minutes. It wasn't long before they started kissing, hands roving over each other's bodies hungrily and without purpose. They seemed to want each other but didn't know where to grab to get to the pure heart of that person, clawing at backs and licking at shoulders like they might cave in and show them the answer. Steve was enraptured by the scene, never seeing anything like it in real life. Mr. Phillips then pawed at the loose shoulder of Mrs. Phillips' shirt, pulling it down gingerly and revealing a good chunk of her left breast. That was when Steve looked away, ducking down under the space of his window and panting heavily. He felt wrong, _so wrong,_ but he also felt so good. If only his mother knew that he was watching neighbors partake in the sins of the flesh with the telescope that was meant to gaze up at the stars. 

When Steve peered back into the eye of the scope that was still pointed at the Phillips' house he found that the window shades had been drawn. _Had they seen him?_ He didn't have time to dwell on that terrifying thought, though, because the loud rumble of an old pick-up truck broke him out of his thoughts and drew his attention to the parking lot nearest their building. It was a black truck with dimmed lights, rust already eating away at the edges of the paint. Its engine sounded like what a clunky lawnmower sounds like when trying to be started up on a humid summer day. Steve didn't know anyone in the building who had that vehicle. 

The truck was shut off and two figures seemed to get out, the one in the driver's seat going to get the door for the passenger. Steve hurriedly went back to his telescope and maneuvered it so that it was pointing down at the parking lot. The driver was revealed to be an older gentleman under the dull glow of the lot's light pole, wrinkles apparent on his face and a certain limp present when he walked. He had on glasses, a black winter hat, dark blonde tufts of hair sticking out, and black leather gloves that Steve envisioned mafia bosses would wear in public. After he had opened the door for his passenger the man walked to the cab of the truck and starting lifting out cases that Steve assumed was luggage. _Why would anyone want to move here?_

Steve then watched the passenger gracefully slip out of the truck. It was a boy who looked to be around his age, he noticed. The boy had short brunette hair that was closer on the color spectrum to black and a well-defined facial structure that the girls at his school probably ogled over constantly and yearned to caress. His eyes had a sunken quality to them, appearing to be red-rimmed, as if the boy had just finished crying or hadn't gotten a wink of sleep the past few nights. It didn't make him ugly, though, or any less attractive, as it might for someone else's complexion, like Steve's, for instance. Instead, it completed the overall engaging image of his face, pairing with his full pink lips and pale skin shade. He was definitely taller than Steve, that wasn't hard, but still shorter than his male counterpart by a few feet. The most captivating thing about him, though, was the fact that as he was walking towards the building, no luggage in hand, he was walking _barefoot._ There was a black pea coat slung around his shoulders, but that was the only thing that could possibly be keeping him safe from the cold. His calves were exposed and his _bare feet_ were making direct contact with the fresh blanket of snow. Steve couldn't even begin to fathom how much pain he must be in. He half-considered going out there and offering him his old pair of sneakers but doubted that he would fit in them. Besides, Steve didn't know if his mother was awake to hear the front door open or not. 

He ran out of his room and to the peep hole on the front door when they disappeared from the view of his telescope. They came up the stairs in considerable silence, the only sound Steve being able to hear the rhythmic clunking of the luggage that the older gentleman was carrying. While he put the cases down and picked out a key from his pocket to open the door to the apartment _next to his,_ the boy leaned across the wall across from it, holding an impassioned gaze on his face with his arms down at his sides. _He must be tired from the drive,_ Steve thought. They went in shortly after that, the door making an loud, unsatisfactory _clunk_ as it closed. Steve decided to retire to bed, then. He had school tomorrow and the point of interest of his night had left, anyway. 


	2. Hate Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Don't shake me, I'm full of tears." - Henry Calet
> 
> "I don't hate you, babe. It's worse than that / 'Cause you hurt me and I don't react. I've been building up this thing for months / Resentment." - Kesha, 'Resentment'

When Steve went out the next morning into the courtyard to start his short commute to the school bus stop he saw that there were still footprints in the snow from where the boy stepped last night. He also noticed that the windows of the apartment next to his, the one the two had moved into, now had various pieces of newspaper and cardboard taped over them, acting as makeshift blackout curtains. It made the space almost look abandoned compared to the open quality of the other apartments. Steve thought it was extremely strange but decided to keep the discovery to himself, not wanting to tell his mother and risk her telling other residents who would no doubt raise a stink about it. He didn't want the new boy to start beating him up, too. 

❅❅❅

He sat on the wooden bench propped up against the white-bricked wall and watched the other kids in his sophomore class swim around in the seemingly pristine pool water, their moving bodies reflected onto the mostly-glass walls of the atrium. It was his gym period and while Steve wouldn't mind swimming, the chemicals that they put in the pool to keep it clean made a nasty red rash blossom on his sensitive skin so Sarah Rogers had sent a note in to his gym teacher, Mr. Erskine, requesting he be excused. The strong fumes of the chlorine emanating from the water also didn't help matters in terms of his asthma, but he promised Mr. Erskine that he would be fine to watch and take mental notes on the different kinds of swimming forms taking place. His lungs would simply have to brave through the cloying humidity, because it was either this or hang out in the nurse's office for an hour, watching all the other kids of the school filter through her doors and take note of his constant being there. " _There's Steve Rogers, the kid one day away from dying."_ No, he didn't want to go in there more than he already had to, so he was content to sit and observe everyone else play volleyball in the pool. 

Well, mostly everyone. Brock and his group of friends were huddled up around the end of the pool closest to him, mostly obscured from Mr. Erskine and crowding around a girl in their grade, Sharon, splashing at her. She seemed untroubled enough to splash back and was giggling softly in response to whatever they were saying, a smile plastered on her face. That is, until Brock snaked around to her back and took one of her swimsuit straps between his thumb and forefinger, snapping it down harshly back on her shoulder. She let out a horrified shriek at the twinge and pain and shouted out, "Mr. Erskine!" Once Sharon told him what had happened he had assigned Brock to ten laps around the pool, which made the slightest smile appear on Steve's face. For once Brock would have to face the consequences for something he did, even though it wasn't for the hellish torture that he had been putting Steve through for what seemed like forever now. Plus, it was only ten measly laps that he would have to swim, not have his arms held behind his back on the ground while other people spat on him. Brock protested that he didn't do anything wrong, slapping the water in frustration when their teacher wouldn't listen to his excuses and threatened ten more laps. Steve shouldn't have paid attention to the scene taking place in front of him for that long, though, because Brock had sensed that he was staring at him and turned his heated gaze on him, catching Steve's overstayed smile about his punishment which quickly turned into a frown. It was like Steve turned into a powerful magnet when he was at his most vulnerable and Brock was the ore that sought him out every time without fail. When class was over he would have to run to his locker and get his things as fast as he could. 

As soon as he heard the bell ring Steve dashed for the glass door leading to the locker rooms, the splashing of students getting out of the pool being drowned out behind him with each step toward his locker. He desperately wished he had more articulate fingers when he was working the combination of the Master key, digits slipping around the cool metal due to his sweaty hands. The backpack hung on the hook was haphazardly slung around his shoulder without much thought; the front pocket was still unzipped. Steve wasn't fast enough, though. He never was. When the smaller boy spun around he was met with the image of Brock and his friends caging him in the locker room, grins that could only be described as feral plastered to their faces. "Hey, little girl," Brock greeted, leaning on the rows of lockers next to him. It was his favorite name for him, after all. "That's why he doesn't want to go swimming. He doesn't want everyone to see what a fucking girl he is." Brock swiftly made his towel into a makeshift whip and hit Steve across the face hard with it, earning a whimper of hurt protest.

Steve made a break for the exit then but was quickly grabbed by the strong hands of his assailants, shoving him down to the concrete floor of the locker room all while he was kicking and shouting, "Stop! No! Please, stop!" It was to no avail, as it always was. No one would come and help sickly Steve Rogers.

"Get his arms! Get his arms!" Brock shouted to the two boys currently manhandling him, Jasper Sitwell and Jack Rollins. Steve's kicks only landed in the air in front of him and his struggling turned out to be futile; they would have their way with him. He was now flush with the cold floor stomach-down, the only thing separating it from his bare skin a thin blue t-shirt. His winter jacket was left in his locker for sake of saving time in his escape. Steve was breathing heavier and heavier by the second, lungs struggling to get air in with the weight of the two boys holding him down. "Well, what do we have here?" Brock mused as he bent down and started to lift Steve's shirt up. "A pretty picture, indeed." That was when he started to beg, hushed little whispers of " _no"_ and _"please"_ escaping from his lips that fell on deaf ears. Brock only pulled his shirt up to his stomach before going to the waistband of his pants and yanking them down so his underwear was showing, a motion Steve could only feel and not see because of his position on the ground. A forceful hand then grabbed the elastic band of his boxers and pulled them up as far as they would go, making Steve yowl and cry out in immense pain. "Does that hurt your _cunt_?" he snarled while still pulling as hard as he could. 

" _O-ow, please, stop_!" Steve breathlessly sobbed, hot tears flowing down his cheeks and pooling on the floor in little clear puddles. He was so scared and his lungs were gasping for air in a way that made him think that he was dying. This was it. Brock had finally killed him like he wanted and his boxers would almost be over his head. A feeling that froze his entire being started pooling low in his belly, one that made his heart hammer and begged for immediate release. His self-control in all aspects was waning but _especially_ when it came to his complicated body. It wasn't long before warmth hit and a big wet stain bloomed on the front of Steve's pants, seeping out onto the floor. He cried even harder.

"Holy shit, dude. I think he pissed himself," Jasper said in shock, letting him go and backing away from his small, shivering form on the floor.

  
"Oh, fuck!" Jack exclaimed in disgust, stepping back as well and holding his hands up in surrender. 

Brock let out an incredulous chuckle as he stared at the puddle that had formed on the floor. "You're such a fucking freak, Rogers. C'mon," he motioned with his head to his friends, walking towards the locker room door and leaving the small boy on the tile in an embarrassing mess of his own urine and tears while he desperately tried in vain to catch his breath.

❅❅❅

In a weird way, Steve was sort of thankful that he got to grab his winter jacket from his locker because he was going to pretend outside tonight since his mother was working late. When he walked out into the cold night at around seven o'clock the sky was already virtually black and a speckling of white stars stretched out above him. The wind had a bit of chill to it but he wouldn't let it deter him from what he sought out to do. There was no one else in the courtyard besides Steve. Well, not really. The familiar tree that he was walking to at the edge of the area had enough human-like qualities for Steve to see it as a person, but that was just because it fit his purposes. He walked up to it, slowly pulling out his hunting knife from his coat pocket and holding it out at arm's length. "Hey little girl," he started his spiel. After that Steve decided to start stabbing at the trunk with his blade, little shocks of wood flying from the tree and falling to the ground littered with snow. "Does that hurt your cunt?" The imitation was weak-voiced, though, and said with a shiver. Steve's threats would never be able to instill as much fear in someone as Brock's did in him. 

"What are you doing?" A gruff voice asked behind him, making Steve jump, turn, and immediately put the knife back in his jacket pocket. It was the boy from last night, the one who had walked barefoot in the snow, but the voice sounded like it definitely shouldn't be coming from the lithe body in front of him. Seeing the boy up close, Steve noticed that he looked a little grungy. Red circles still hung around his eyes and one word to describe his form would be _malnourished._ He almost looked a little like Steve, the blonde absent-mindedly thought. His hair looked like it hadn't been washed for a while and his clothes, a ripped pair of raggedy jeans and an ill-fitting long black t-shirt, looked like they came from the Goodwill or someplace similar to that. 

"N-nothing," Steve sputtered, embarrassed. "What are you doing?"

The boy lightly shrugged with the tiniest movement of his shoulders. His face had a blank expression, almost as if he was bored. "Nothing."

"You just moved in, huh?" Steve asked, wanting to move the conversation along and to a point where they wouldn't have to talk about why he was stabbing a tree with a hunting knife in the cold at night. Besides, getting to know him a little wouldn't hurt.

His eyebrows furrowed a little at that. "How do you know?" 

"I live next door to you." 

The boy nodded and waited a moment before responding, shoving his hands in his jean's pockets. "Just so you know, we can't be friends."

"Why?" Steve whispered in a voice that was quieter than he meant.

"That's just the way it is." With that, the brunette turned around and started walking back toward the apartments. Steve was feeling a multitude of emotions from the encounter, but the one at the forefront was anger and frustration. _Who did this boy think he was?_ Besides, he was getting a little tired of having to deal with the way it supposedly was. 

"Well, who said I wanted to be your friend anyway?" He irritably yelled after him, but the boy was already gone from view. As an afterthought, Steve muttered, "Idiot," and went back to making bark fly off the tree. 

Later that night Steve laid in his small wooden bed and stared up at the ceiling, arms folded on top of his stomach. His mother still wasn't home from work, and it was already 11 o'clock. Alone, again. Whatever. He was used to it. As he turned so that he was on his side facing the wall in order to try to get some sleep there was a loud bang on the other side of the wall that startled him, one that almost sounded like a door being slammed shut. Heavy footsteps came closer to the wall that Steve was facing and something strong suddenly pounded against it, making Steve jump and sit upright, sweat starting to bead on his forehead. Voices starting speaking then in earnest. They were muffled and one of them came through the wall as extremely deep and distorted, almost sounding like the Devil in the Bible story videos Steve's mother had made him watch as a kid. He couldn't make out everything the voices were saying, but it was clear that someone was extremely angry. The only full sentences that he could comprehend from the conversation came from the deeper tone, saying, **"What, am I supposed to go out there and get it myself?"** After a pregnant pause followed **"** **Answer me!"**

A deep growl emanated through the plaster that put Steve's stomach into knots. The door slammed again next door, seemingly harder this time, if that was even possible. Steve didn't go to sleep for a while after that, afraid that he would be woken up by the figure who made the growl entering his room.


	3. I Should Walk Away

They had another assembly on the following week's Monday, two days after Steve had heard the commotion through the wall, but this one wasn't about drugs. It was about Scottie Briggs, a recent graduate from their school who had been found that weekend drained of all his blood and suspended from a hook in the forest without mercy. His mother had tightly hugged him after she broke the news to him, marveled at how it had only happened about ten miles away from their apartment. She made him promise to be careful, meaning that he was restricted to the area of the courtyard when he was outside, and Steve was honestly terrified. There was a bad drug problem in their town, sure, but that only led to deaths if there was misuse on someone's part or a crippling dependency directly related to the drug. Other civilians usually didn't die because of that. Killings were a different story. Victims were picked off with no rhyme or reason, Scottie being a prime example. Steve didn't personally know him, but he had heard from others that he was a great guy who helped out whenever he could and worked at the YMCA teaching youth league hockey. It was weird when Sarah had tried to comfort him about it for that sole reason; he had no emotional tether to him other than the sympathetic grief for the loss of a young life. If Steve crossed paths with the killer he would no doubt be met with the same fate. He was so weak and skinny already; he wouldn't be able to defend himself in the slightest and the killer would have a field day with him. Unless the assailant wanted his victim to put up a fight. In that case, Steve might be spared. 

Besides the sound of the police officer's voice whose name Steve couldn't remember echoing through the speaker system in the auditorium there was also the sound of hushed sobbing and the occasional gasp, because while Steve wasn't friends with Scottie a lot of others were and they were absolutely shattered by the news of his death. A girl in the row behind him was among those who knew him closely, whimpering into her friend's shoulder. It made Steve's heart hurt. Brock, Jasper, and Jack were sitting behind him as well, and when he turned around he could see them whispering and giggling, staring at the mourning girl as if the reason for their laughter was her. _They were such dicks,_ Steve thought. _Someone died and here they were joking without a care in the world._ Steve wouldn't be surprised if Brock ended up having something to do with it. He turned back around and slumped further down in his seat. "A recent graduate of your school was found dead this weekend," the police officer spoke. "We know that some of you knew Scott personally, and we're very sorry for everyone's loss. So many people have come forward to share what a great kid he was and how he set an example. What happened to him was depraved and vile. We are having this assembly to make students aware of the threat that is now present in Los Alamos, as we have not caught the person or persons possible yet. Please, if you see something or someone suspicious from here on out or have information pertaining to the case please do not hesitate to contact the police department." Steve wouldn't. 

❅❅❅

Steve sat down on one of the platforms of the jungle-gym and shifted his Rubik's Cube, a fresh blanket of snow peppering the ground around him. He was confined to the courtyard but that didn't mean that he still couldn't find ways to entertain himself while breathing in the crisp air of the night and admiring the various strings of Christmas lights that his neighbors had begun to hang around their patios. The Rubik's Cube would keep him occupied for a while. Steve wasn't that good at it yet, just learning how to do it from his mother not long ago after one of her coworkers had gotten it for him as a gift. 

He heard him coming this time, although barely. His light steps made the snow minutely crunch under the weight of his feet. The boy was dressed in a red raglan tee and tan cargo shorts that revealed his pale legs that had a layer of brown hair on them, the polar opposite of Steve's virtually smooth legs with a light speckling of fine blonde hair. He was wearing this outfit despite the temperature and his hair was still a mess on the top of his head. "You again, huh?" The boy took a seat on the jungle-gym but it was still a good distance away from Steve, putting them at a ninety degree angle from each other. "You know, I really want to be left alone, pal," he grumbled. 

"Yeah, me too," Steve shot back, not bothering to tear his attention away from the Rubik's Cube in his hands.

"So leave."

"You leave. I was here first. Plus, I've lived here longer than you."

"What is that?" The boy deflected, craning his neck to look over Steve's shoulder to see what he was doing. He was inching closer to him on the bench but stopped immediately when Steve turned around to look at him, going so far as to recoil, his red-rimmed eyes wide. 

Steve looked at him incredulously, not believing his ears. He was extremely sheltered from the world, he knew that, but apparently this boy was worse off, not even knowing about the toy that had shaped the century they were living in. "You don't know what a Rubik's Cube is?" Steve couldn't help but think that this boy's family was extremely poor, which only consisted of his father and him as far as he knew. He didn't want to pity him, though, because he was pitied himself for being so frail and he absolutely _hated it._ It wasn't because they wanted to care for him or help him, no. It was because they knew that they were better than him and pitied him for never being able to be on the same level that they were, at the same time wanting to do nothing on their part to make that a possibility. They were alike in that way, him and the boy. The negatives in life that they had to face were thrust onto them by no doing on their part and they just had to sit there and take it. Well, at least Steve did. He wasn't sure about how the brunette handled it. 

"Is it is a puzzle?" The boy asks, seemingly enraptured by it as though it were as grand as a new Atari 5200. 

"Well, yeah. You have to twist the rows of blocks around so that all the sides are the same color," Steve explains. It's not the boy's fault, but Steve can't help but feel a little stupid telling him the point of a Rubik's Cube. He tilts more towards him so that he can see it clearly in his hands and begins to work out a side, eyebrows furrowed in concentration. They're so close that their knees bump together and while Steve shivers a little from the icy contact, the boy doesn't seem to care, still staring at his hands. Steve isn't sure if that's the only reason he shivered, though. The red side of the cube is eventually done. "See? Like that. You wanna try? You can give it back tomorrow."

"No, that's alright," he answers, but Steve can clearly see the want to say 'yes' written on the boy's face. 

"C'mon, it's not a big deal. You can give it back to me tomorrow." The taller boy finally gives in and takes the Rubik's Cube from Steve's hands, brushing his long fingers against his knuckles as he does so. His hands are absolutely freezing. Now that the boy starts to work the cube for himself and taking in the fact that they are still close together Steve starts to notice the pungent odor coming off in waves from the boy due to the wind picking up and blowing past them. It's not a pleasant smell, either. It's the staying smell that Steve presumes one would have after dumpster diving and then on the way home getting sprayed by a skunk. A shower wouldn't be able to get rid of that scent, not all of it. The comparison is harsh, but sounds completely accurate to Steve. "You smell kinda funny," Steve blurts out. If his mother heard him say that she would bend him over and whack him with a wooden spoon, but the boy doesn't say anything in response even though he must've heard him. 

Wanting to change the subject, he searches for a new topic in his mind. When he glances down at his winter boots for ideas Steve makes the shocking discovery that the boy is barefoot _again._ "Aren't you cold?"

He doesn't look up from the cube, answering, "I dunno. I don't really get cold," with an impassive look on his face. What breaks the silence between them that blooms is a loud gurgling noise that Steve can only assume came from the brunette's stomach. The boy quietly groans in pain, moving a hand to set the Rubik's Cube on the bench space next to him and then placing it on his stomach, head bent down so that it's almost in between his legs. 

"Are you okay?" Steve asks, suddenly worried. His hand rises with the intention to reach out and tentatively touch the boy's back in a gesture of comfort but he decides against it, putting it back down on his thigh.

"I'm fine," he bites out, voice strained and almost coming out as a growl before lifting his head again and picking the cube back up with shaky fingers. Steve takes that as a notice that he should probably leave the boy alone now, hoping that he was actually fine. Besides, he still had to read a good chunk of his Bible tonight, shamefully falling behind on his passages. 

"Well, I guess I'll see you tomorrow, then." With that he walks back towards the entrance door to their apartment complex, leaving the barefooted boy with his Rubik's Cube and the whisper of a contented smile playing at his lips. 

❅❅❅

He heard more yelling through the wall that night after finishing up memorizing his last psalm of Romans. The demonic-sounding one was absent from that night's conversation but Steve was still scared of the voices, especially the one that was yelling and calling the other a 'rotten bastard'. "You do whatever you want and then I have to clean up your mess!" It shouted. Steve was also very scared for the boy that was supposed to live next door. It was weird and foolish, but he hoped that it was just the boy's relatives yelling at each other instead of someone yelling at him directly. The boy didn't deserve to get yelled at like that; Steve was pretty sure that he couldn't do anything so bad as to warrant that kind of language. His own parents yelled at each other a lot, but Steve wasn't sure if he'd prefer that over them yelling at him and still being happy with each other. The door slammed closed against the frame like it did at the end of the other night that Steve was listening to their qualms. 


	4. But I Think I'll Stay

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "So the mad man's in the big chair, and his heart's an iron vault. He says 'If you can't make ends meet honey, it must be your fault'. We all focus on the winners, and get blinded by their shine." - Miley Cyrus, 'Golden G String'

At the spontaneous breakfast that his mother and he usually never had the next morning she mused, "Well, our neighbors really like slamming that door, huh?" Steve chuckled around the spoon of oatmeal in his mouth, nodding his head. He had asked her if she had heard anything beyond that, but she replied that she hadn't, turning the question back to him. Eventually Steve responded in the negative, too scared to bring up the yelling for fear of the man doing it. That Saturday the blonde had been leaning on his tiptoes and peeking out of the door's peephole, waiting for a package that his mother had asked him to sign for while she was out shopping. The older gentleman from the apartment next to theirs had appeared in the circle after coming in from the stairs to the left. He actually had stood in front of their door for a moment and practically glared at it, making Steve worry that he knew somehow that he was looking at him. Quickly after the man went into his own apartment he decided to lock the door and wait on the couch for the knock signaling the delivery man's presence. He didn't tell his mother about that, either, because it might end up in a lecture about how spying is a sin, even though he wasn't the one who started it. 

Steve also noticed at breakfast that morning that his mother was pouring what he was pretty sure to be alcohol in her morning coffee. All he could think was that he couldn't imagine it tasted good. As he was finishing up his orange juice she had asked him if his father had tried to call and talk to him lately while she was out of the house but he responded in the negative to that, too. He hadn't talked to him in a while, regardless of method. 

When he walked into the courtyard that morning and noticed what was sitting on the jungle-gym he practically sprinted to it. The Rubik's Cube was laying there, complete on all sides and topped off with a layer of snow fall from the night. Steve was in awe. _How could the boy have possibly finished it that fast when he didn't even know what it was last night? Was he simply pulling his leg?_ The boy had seemed genuinely confused but Steve might have been overly gullible, as well. As he was marveling at the finished cube Mr. and Mrs. Phillips passed by him on the sidewalk with what he thought to be a new, small dog on a leash. There was a fancy pink collar on its neck and a white bow clipped to the fur by one of its ears. Mr. Phillips moved to put a hand on his wife's a-ahem, _lower back_ as they walked but she had quickly swatted his hand away, noticing that Steve was watching them. "What?" Mr. Phillips asked in a hushed whisper as they moved further and further away from him. 

Steve also passed by a makeshift memorial for Scottie leaned against the chain-link fence at his school on his way in. It consisted of his name spelt out in flowers and various pictures that students had supplied of him and them together, some of them in which he was making silly faces or holding a hockey stick triumphantly up in the air. He thought it was beautiful. 

❅❅❅

Walking back out into the courtyard that night, cube in hand, Steve noticed that the boy was already sitting at the jungle-gym and smiling up at him, almost as if he was waiting for him. The boy looked better appearance-wise, too, which Steve thought was a weird thing to think since he was already clearly attractive, even with those underlying grungy features. His hair looked like it had finally been washed and while his eyes still held that sunken quality it wasn't as prominent. The red circles around them were gone, leaving the skin looking vibrant and glowing. He was dressed better as well, wearing a pale blue button-up akin to a shirt that Steve owned himself and a black pair of slacks. In comparison, Steve was wearing a plain white t-shirt under his puffed jacket and khakis. "How did you do it?"

"I just...twisted it," the boy shrugs, as if it was no big deal. He scoots over on the space of platform he is sitting on that was free of snow in invitation for Steve to sit next to him and he obliges. The brunette gets closer to Steve, their thighs almost touching, and practically whispers in his ear as he asks, "Do I smell better now?" Steve could even feel his hot breath puff on the skin below his ear as he spoke. He shrugs and gives him a small smile in response, fresh embarrassment coursing through him when he is reminded of his comment from the other night. The boy really does smell better, though. Like sandalwood. 

"So, what's your name?" Steve questions, stupidly realizing that he doesn't know it yet. 

"It's James. James Buchanan Barnes. My nickname is Bucky, though. That's what people mostly called me."

"Well, which one do you prefer?" 

He pauses, as if no one has even asked him that before. "You can call me Bucky," he answers with another smile. His smile is lovely, drawing Steve in more and more each time he sees it. It gives him a warm feeling in his belly that he can't quite explain. "What's your name?" 

"It's uh, it's Steve. Steven Grant Rogers."

"Hmmm. Steve," Bucky muses, putting his pointer finger to his plush lips and tapping against them with it. "I like it. It's a very nice name."

"Um, thanks," he accepts awkwardly. It wasn't a unique or cool name; lots of other people had it. Maybe Bucky was trying to lift his spirits because he could sense how much of a loser Steve was. "How old are you?"

"Sixteen, more or less. What about you?"

Steve looks at him with a queer expression. "Fifteen years, six months, and nine days. What do you mean, 'more or less'? When's your birthday?" 

"I don't know."

"You don't _know_? Don't you celebrate your birthday?" Bucky doesn't respond, instead opting to look down at his feet on the ground. _How is that possible?_ He's so confused. "What about your parents? They must know." Still no response. "Don't you get birthday presents?" 

"No," Bucky simply answers. Steve needs a moment to take the sheer awfulness of that in. He assumed the boy was poor, but not to the point where he didn't get _anything_ for his birthday. Did his parents not tell him about his birthday because they knew they couldn't afford a gift for him? They could still celebrate him, at least. It made Steve a little angry, fragile as he was. 

"Well, you can have this...if you want." He extends his arm with the Rubik's Cube still in it to the boy next to him. 

The brunette smiles that prize-winning smile of his again, obviously touched. Steve would buy Bucky a thousand Rubik's Cubes if she could see him smile like that for each one. "That's okay. It's yours, Stevie." _Stevie,_ he had called him.

Steve turns the cube over in his hand, still excited and in disbelief. "I still don't get how you did this, you sorcerer," he jokes. 

"Want me to show you?" The boy offers. 

"Yeah..." 

Bucky then takes it from Steve's hand and huddles up closer against him, body heat finally starting to radiate from the boy next to him. Steve can feel the surprisingly strong muscles in the brunette's arm shift against his skinny shoulder with each movement. "You have to start with the corners..." And if there's a stirring in Steve's pants from watching Bucky deftly work the cube in his big hands, well, no one has to know about it. 


	5. Trophy Eyes

_"Will thou be gone? It is not yet near day..."_ The television that their English teacher wheeled in at the beginning of the class period droned on. They were watching a scene of Zefferilli's "Romeo and Juliet" production that they had just finished reading in class together but Steve wasn't paying much attention. If he was, he would see that Juliet was laying naked twisted up in the sheets and forlornly watching Romeo get dressed as he prepared to leave her in the early morning, as most romances ended, Steve assumed. Many of his classmates snickered and made mock retching noises at the romantic content being displayed to them but the teacher seemed to pay no mind to it, nose buried in a book. Instead of watching the movie, Steve was copying down the Morse code alphabet on two torn-out sheets of lined paper, dots and lines of etched graphite littering the page. He was doing it with a certain fervor and intensity that could only have the action be described as an act of passion. If he felt that one of the marks wasn't written prettily enough or the smallest edge was jagged he would erase it, starting over with a more delicate grip on his pencil and a still of his shaking hand. The writing needed to be as concise as possible, that was true, but more than anything he wanted it to look nice. He hated that both pages already had little folds at the bottom right corners from the haphazard position the notebook held in his desk. His leg bounced up and down as he wrote, partly from excitement and partly because he had to pee so bad but didn't dare ask to go to the bathroom in the front of the class and draw unwanted attention to himself. Pinching the front of his pants seemed to be the temporary solution for his problem, one that sort of made him uncomfortable. Even though the motion was innocent enough, Steve still couldn't help but feel like he was doing something wrong just by grabbing that part of his body. 

After class he finally got the sweet relief that he was searching for, bracing his elbow against one of the stall walls as he let out a little sigh of alleviation. Maybe he took too much enjoyment in the sensation, but that was the only pressure that got to be relieved there, as it should be. Steve's sigh hitched in his throat as the door to the boy's bathroom opened. _It's fine_ , he calmed himself as he flushed, _just another student_. But deep down he knew that he was lying to himself; it wasn't just another student, it was them. Steve wasn't lucky enough for it not to be them. Sometimes, in his weakest moments, he wondered if God didn't love him enough for it to actually _not_ be them. The sound of metal scraping against the ground rang in his ears.

When he hesitantly picked up his belongings that he set on the freshly-cleaned tiled floor, opened the door to the stall, and stepped out, Brock, Jasper, and Jack were to his left, Jasper sitting on a metal garbage can that they shoved against the bathroom door, effectively blocking his only exit. They had their arms crossed. Well, besides Brock, who was clearly hiding something behind his back that Steve didn't particularly care to discover. He wrapped his arms around his own chest in a pathetic attempt to be comforted. "What were you writing in Cook's class, little girl?" Brock asked, motioning with his head to the notebook that Steve was clutching onto. _Was he always watching him? Why did he care?_

"N-nothing," he offered, stammering. 

"You're lying. Well? Let's see it," Brock commands, making a _gimme_ gesture with one of the hands that was previously behind his back. 

Usually Steve was fine giving Brock whatever he wanted, whether that was lunch money that meant that he wouldn't get a meal that day or one of the small candies that he would receive in class if he got an answer right when he finally spoke up. He didn't want to give this up, though. Steve had worked very hard on it, plus it was for someone important. Showing up empty-handed would be embarrassing. So, he decided to take a quiet stand. "No." He immediately wishes he didn't, as Brock's face contorts into that of an unmerciful sneer, as if Steve has just done the dastardly act of slapping his mother in front of him. 

"I'm sorry, what was that, _slut?_ " Brock takes a step closer to him and reveals what he was hiding. It's an old, long, torn-off car antenna that he's holding out like a sword in front of him. Jack snorts at the display but Brock doesn't seem to notice. "Where is it?" Steve chooses to be silent and looks down at the ground, biting his lip so hard that he's sure to draw blood. If he opens his mouth or stares at the belongings in his hand he believes he is sure to give away its position and have it ripped from his hands. The antenna in Brock's hand comes down hard on one of Steve's thighs then, and the other boys watch as if they're attending a public flogging. Heck, Steve's surprised that they didn't invite more people in their grade to watch. The way he would describe the pain was a stinging sensation that long overstayed its welcome, immediate hurt seeming to enter his very bloodstream and spread all down his leg. It. wasn't enough pain for him to give in, though. Sickly Steve Rogers could be strong and brave through it. _Wouldn't that be a shock?_ He succeeds in holding back a whimper. "Where is it?" Brock repeats. The antenna comes down harder when he doesn't respond, blood spilling from his bitten-through lip. Steve feels like a wind-up toy whose owner is trying, but failing, to start him up again so that he just buzzes within his entire being instead of waddling around with a chipper clacking motion. Still, he stays silent. _"Show me!"_ The next slash comes as an unwanted surprise, landing right on his left cheek and leaving a nasty, bloody slash that he can't help but bring a hand to right after it happens, mouth agape in awe with no sound coming out. His body is as stiff as a board. _Light as a feather, stiff as a board..._ That one stays hurting, and it hurts _bad._

"Holy shit, dude!" Jasper exclaims from atop the garbage can after Brock's hand comes down. 

"What?" Brock turns and snaps in an annoyed tone, visibly breathing hard and coming down from the apparently euphoric high of hurting Steve.

"You try explaining that to his mother." 

He turns around again to look back at Steve, who is still holding a hand to his slashed cheek and has fat tears rolling down his face. Brock smugly grins. "She's not going to tell her mother on us, is she?" He says sweetly. _"_ No, she'll just say that she fell outside on the pavement, like a clumsy little girl. _Say it!"_

❅❅❅

"I fell outside on the pavement," Steve sheepishly told his mother at dinner that night as she handed him his plate, big tan Band-aid neatly placed over the gash after school. He couldn't tell her that it was Brock; she wouldn't be able to take it. Sarah was under so much stress already and the absolute _last_ thing that Steve wanted to do was upset her further. If the news of him getting bullied broke her, than the strain of knowing _he_ was the one who caused that would break Steve. The wound would physically heal, anyways, as every other mark that Brock left on his body and every shot that he had to get in his arm for various illnesses did. Hoping that things would heal on the mental side of the situation was a colossal joke that never elicited much laughter.

She tutted with her tongue and shook her head at him but eventually went over to where he was sitting and held him close to her chest, kissing him on the head. Her hair was in a messy up-do, some blonde hairs escaping and hanging down in her face; she was still in her work clothes. _Is that what it took to get physical contact from others?_ Steve wondered. _Have his fragile being be shattered?_ His mother had ended up asking him to promise her that he will try to be more careful as she pulled away. "I just can't stand to see my baby hurt" was her explanation. Steve suddenly felt very guilty after that, so he made the promise to both Sarah and God. The idea that he should've given up the papers and spared the beating jumbled around in his mind, but in the end his consciousness conceded that it was worth it because it was for-

❅❅❅

"Bucky!" Steve happily greets him as he walks/runs over to the jungle-gym where he is sitting, sheets of paper ruffling around in his tight grip due to the wind. He practically jumps up to sit on the platform nearest the ground next to him, sliding a little into his body and shucking off his backpack so that it lies in the snow. Bucky didn't seem to mind, though, staying still as a rock despite the shove and giving him a small smile for his enthusiasm while he leans forward on his palms, peering into his backpack and pulling out his copy of _Romeo and Juliet_. With a smile still on his face, Bucky asks if he was reading it. "Yeah, but it's for school and it's boring. So, listen, I wrote down the Morse code alphabet by the dots and lines so that if we tapped them correctly we could talk to each other through the wall!" He chirps, placing one of the papers in Bucky's lap. 

He doesn't seem pleased, though, and that immediately makes Steve's chest constrict and his palms sweaty. The blonde thought that Bucky would be happy that they could have another form of communication that didn't have to involve going out into the cold, but then again, Bucky claimed that he didn't get cold. Maybe he didn't want to talk to Steve anymore than he had to, only holding conversation with him out of pity and to maintain politeness. He was so stupid, getting excited over something like that like a... like a _little girl._ Bucky was visibly bristled at his proposition, so Steve tries to take it back. "But, of course, we don't have to if you don't want to. It was a stupid idea anyway," he says while going to retrieve the sheet from Bucky's lap. Grabbing his wrist tightly in an impressive display of reflexes, Bucky stops him. 

"Can you hear me? Through the wall?" The brunette whispers, still holding Steve's wrist. 

"O-only sometimes," Steve lies. He can hear them all the time, and sometimes it keeps him from sleeping at night because he's scared of Bucky's dad and scared for Bucky's safety. Steve goes to pull his skinny wrist away from Bucky's grip and the boy reluctantly obliges. 

"What about the other night? Did you hear anything the other night?"

"A little. What was your dad so mad about?" Bucky doesn't answer him or even raise his head, instead inspecting his copy of _Romeo and Juliet_ by turning it front to back and over again. Steve was starting to get antsy, so he decided to look down too and swing his legs back and forth, kicking the snow up in little eruptions of white crystal. "So, where's your mom?" he asks him. "Are your parents divorced?"

Bucky starts flipping through the pages of the play with his thumb as he responds, "My mom is dead." 

"Oh. I'm sorry." Steve immediately regrets asking, especially when Bucky doesn't seem too happy with him in the first place. To try to make it up, Steve wants to share something personal with him as well, since the boy obviously didn't have to share that information. "My mom and dad are getting a divorce." 

He finally looks up at him then, his face an expression of sadness and sympathy. Steve quickly wants to move away from the intensity of his gaze. Bucky's stare has a way of making him feel very self-conscious very fast, and he isn't sure why. His face always heats up and he bows his head, cursing himself for his shyness. It isn't Bucky's fault, it's Steve's, but one way to fix it would be for Bucky to not look at Steve with so much attentiveness and engrossment, which he does even when he's not speaking. No one else looks at him that way; not even his own mother. Bucky hand suddenly rises from the book to gently touch Steve's face where his Band-aid is, not putting too much pressure on the wound. Steve shivers when his purposeful fingers make contact, but Bucky's fingers aren't cold. He almost wishes that Bucky put pressure on the wound so that the touch would be more lasting, and maybe if he made a sound of discomfort Bucky would leave his tender touch there longer. "What happened there?" He asks, head tilted in confusion.

Steve looks away, deflecting as he responds, "Nothing. Just some kids from school." He notices that Bucky now looks concerned, eyebrows furrowed, but he tries to brush right past it, not wanting to get into what he has to deal with during the day. Bucky didn't need to be saddled with his stupid problems, after all. There was also the underlying fear that Bucky might call him a baby or accuse him of having a cunt. '"So, what school do you go to? I never see you around-"

"Steve, _listen_ ," Bucky interrupts him with a strong voice. He obeys, looking at the other boy even though it's hard to without blushing. His eyes are alight with blue thunderclouds. "You have to hit back. You have to hit back _hard."_

He shakes his head, not faulting Bucky for not knowing that it isn't that simple. It may be for him, body currently akin to the rest of the boys in Steve's grade, but not for him. He can't fight back without shattering his hand, getting his back broken in half, or having his lungs give out on him. Besides... "There are three of them." 

"Then you hit back even harder. Hit them harder than you dare. And then they'll stop, Steve."

"What if they hit me back?"

Bucky blandly and simply says back, "You have a knife," which Steve supposes is true, but he doesn't think he could ever use that on a real person, even though that is what the endgame is for his bouts of pretending. Trees have bark. People have skin. 

"What if they doesn't stop them?"

The brunette pauses for a moment, staring out into space and thinking, jaw setting and unsetting. "Then I'll help you," he finally answers, turning his head back to him with sincerity written all over it and putting his right hand over Steve's smaller left in a gesture of kindness. If Steve wasn't blushing before, he definitely is now. _Why am I like this?_ he thinks. The older boy is obviously being nice and here Steve is, making a big deal out of it. He can't ruin this. It's one of the first times that this has happened to him. Eventually Bucky starts rubbing his thumb against Steve's skin, comforting his nerves with an unspoken ease. 

It's the best answer that Steve could possibly hope for, Bucky being as big as Brock and not looking malnourished like he did a few days ago, but he still doesn't feel right about it. "Thank you, Bucky, really, but I couldn't ask you to do that for me." 

"The thing is, you don't have to ask," Bucky says, head moving closer to Steve's own. "It's fine. I'm actually a lot stronger than you think pal, believe it or not. Besides, I hate seeing you hurt, Stevie." That was the same thing his mother had said, but it felt different when Bucky said it, caressing his hand. He couldn't explain it, but it felt more genuine in a way and made more warmth bloom in his chest. Bucky picks up the Morse code sheet that was still sitting in his lap that Steve had almost forgotten about. "So, show me how to do this." 

❅❅❅

Steve lies in his bed fully dressed and studies his own Morse code sheet, waiting for Bucky. He's on his stomach and his legs are up in the air, hand under his chin. Eventually he hears a sort of commotion on the other side of the wall where he makes out Bucky saying something like "Move!" and "I have to get in there!" Concern riddles his features but not for long because Bucky finally knocks once in greeting. Steve knocks back with a dopey grin on his face, then starts tapping out his message: S-W-E-E-T D-R-E-A-M-S.


	6. High

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Sometimes I stay up all night 'cause you don't ever talk to me in my dreams / And I think about eventually you're holding me and dancing to the record like a movie scene." - Miley Cyrus, 'High'

Mr. Erskine's office is filled with a ton of athletic memorabilia. It makes sense, considering that as well as being the gym teacher he has the position of tennis coach, but Steve never knew it was possible to have this many picture, awards, newspaper clippings, and trophies in one space and not be recruited for the Olympics or something. But then again, he's never gotten an award for anything related to physical ability. He's sitting in a comfy chair in Mr. Erskine's office and staring at all the little treasures and things on his wall because the man wasn't there yet and his student aid, Clint Barton, told him to wait for him there while he went to clean the workout equipment. Steve has never been in this room before. He's never had a reason to be. The thought of playing any kind of sport had always been out of reach for him, the fear that his little limbs were going to snap in two at any moment and let the whole team down always present. What he wanted to ask Mr. Erskine about thankfully didn't involve being relied on, just relying on himself. 

Five minutes passed before Mr. Erskine walked in with a steaming hot cup of coffee in a white ceramic mug that had their school's logo on it and that day's newspaper. "Ah, Steven," he greeted as he shut the door behind him with a click. "Clint told me that you were coming." Mr. Erskine was German, so the 'were' actually came out sounding like 'ver'. Steve had heard Brock despicably accuse him of being a Nazi on more than one occasion. "I must say, it is a surprise to see you in here. What can I help you with?"

"The, um, the strength training. Can people still join?" 

Mr. Erskine folds his arms on his desk and peers down at him, as if he's trying to gauge whether Steve is genuine about this or not. It doesn't make Steve uncomfortable, though, because Mr. Erskine's eyes are kind and his expression is non-judgmental, unlike other teachers he's talked to who try to figure him out with one patronizing glare. "Yes, it is still open. Do you want to join, Steven? Become big and strong, hmm?"

Steve just nods in response, because risking saying anything out loud and hearing him talk about himself like that might cause him to change his mind and be ashamed of how much of a pipe dream this might turn out to be.

"Okay," he concludes with a pleased expression on his face. "You come Thursday nights at six o'clock and we make you big and strong. Bring water." 

Thanking him, Steve rises from the comfy chair, puffy jacket making a swooshing sound from the friction, and practically skips out of Mr. Erskine's office, feeling full of purpose and motivation. Well, he almost makes it out of his office before the man speaks again, making him turn around. "Oh, and Steven? We also teach you how to swim." He sheepishly nods at that before stepping out. This could actually be a big breakthrough for Mr. Erskine to show his expertise in physicality. If you could make scrawny Steve Rogers big and strong, you could practically do anything. 

❅❅❅

Steve's day had been great so far, and it was only going to get better. He had signed up for strength training that morning, surprisingly got an A- on a chemistry test that afternoon even though he hadn't studied for it one bit, and tonight he was getting the chance to hang out with Bucky and take him to all of his favorite spots around Los Alamos. To be honest, he hadn't been this excited about something in a long time. The only bad thing about the situation was that he would have to disobey his mother in two ways to do it. First, he was going to spend his savings on Bucky and himself even though his mother had told him to save it for an "important" item that he wanted at Christmas because she wasn't going to be able to get him a whole lot this year, but this was the most important thing to Steve at the moment and worth spending that money on. Besides, what else did he need, anyway? He had a good friend now. Secondly, Steve was going to leave the courtyard, which Sarah had expressly made him promise not to do when news of the dead body being found came out. They still hadn't found the killer. Steve conveyed that concern to Bucky but the brunette had just wrapped his arm around his shoulder and pulled him in close, whispering in his ear that he would protect him if anything happened with a chuckle. There was a big chance that his mother wouldn't even find out that he had left the courtyard in the first place. For the past few nights she had been drinking bottles of wine on the couch and being lulled to sleep by the murmur of the TV, and every time Steve found her he would take the bottle out of her hand, turn the TV off, and cover her with a blanket. Steve knew that he was going to be sinning tonight and that he should stop himself, but he also couldn't help but think that God should have stopped Brock from slashing his cheek yesterday and that God should stop his mother from being so sad. He tried his best to push those thoughts out of mind before he left so that he could focus his full attention on making a good time for Bucky. Sarah was in the shower when he took a twenty out of his wallet, bundled up in his hat and coat, and quietly slipped out the front door. 

Bucky was waiting for him in the courtyard, hands relaxed by his sides and body teetering back and forth on the balls of his feet, and Steve couldn't help but admit that he looked handsome where he currently stood. He was actually wearing black sneakers this time, much to Steve's amazement (still no jacket, though). The short-sleeve polka-dotted white and navy button-up shirt that he was wearing gave a peek of the sparse hair on his chest, accentuated the muscles in his upper arms, and contrasted in color to his pale, creamy skin, whose hue wasn't that far off from the snow's. His hair was mused up like he had fixed it in the mirror, and Steve suddenly felt embarrassed because his hair would be sticking out in all directions once he took his hat off. At least Steve was wearing a decent shirt, which was the polo that he had managed to clean the mud off of after he had gotten shoved to the ground. He wouldn't be called handsome like Bucky would be, but perhaps presentable instead. Or little girl. Or faggot. The only thing that Steve noticed that was off with Bucky was that the red circles around his eyes had returned. They gave the boy a sort of _dangerous_ vibe that almost made Steve squirm in his shoes, although he wasn't sure exactly why he liked it so much.

"So, where are ya taking me?" Bucky asked after they had walked about a block away from the apartments. Steve thought it would be hard to keep up with him considering the brunette's longer legs but Bucky's steps fell in tandem with his eventually, uniform sounds of soles hitting the pavement. He knew that Bucky had to be doing it on purpose, but he hugely appreciated his patience for his inadequate body, nonetheless. 

"Well, I was thinking about taking you to this arcade downtown that's really cool and has a ton of pinball machines. Then there's this bookstore that I go to that has awesome decks of cards that have different designs on the back that you can choose from, and then there's Zoch's, which is a convenience store that has really good candy that I go to all the time." After speaking, Steve realized that he hadn't taken a single breath while explaining his plans, and he had to gulp some air in while he waited for Bucky's thoughts. And there he was, standing there and staring at Steve again like he was the only thing in the entire universe that there was to look at, blue eyes full of waves crashing onto a desolate shore and bolts of lightening being struck down from the gods. "But we don't have to go to any of those places. We can go wherever you want," he quickly added. 

Bucky just smiled at him like he always did and pulled Steve closer to his bigger body by gripping his shoulder tightly and slinging his arm across the back of his neck as they continued to walk. "You lead the way, pal." The intoxicating sandalwood scent that was Bucky filled Steve's nostrils and he had to resist the urge to simply press closer to him and bury his nose in his chest for the smell alone. _That would be wrong_ , Steve reminded himself. _Bucky is his friend, and a boy at that. Boys didn't do that to other boys._ Well, most boys. Good boys, as Father Zola at church would say and his mother would agree. Steve was pretty sure that he was still a good boy, but not one-hundred percent positive. They hadn't been to church for a while so no one had passed that judgement onto Steve lately. 

They had an excellent time at the arcade. Steve had shown Bucky his favorite game, Mrs. Pac-man, and the older boy had laughed when he got frustrated and slapped his hands on the joysticks while the death sound played out of the speakers. He had never heard him laugh before, and it set butterflies loose in his stomach because it was one of those laughs that was contagious and you couldn't help but join in. His eyes scrunched up when he laughed as well, Steve noticed. Bucky had attempted to play the game after that and intently listened to Steve as he talked him through it, even going so far as to ask Steve to put his hands over Bucky's on the joysticks to guide him. Steve obliged, soft skin brushing against his, and when Bucky played again by himself and got farther than Steve ever had he asked him to do the same for him. Pinball machines seemed to be Bucky's favorite, though. There was a whole wall of them at the arcade and the boy seemed determined to study each one, mesmerized by the various flashing lights and the inner-working components that went into each game. Steve felt really happy, getting to introduce Bucky to all of this, and he hoped that in the future Bucky would introduce him to some of the things that he was into as well. The last thing that they did at the arcade was play against each other in Frogger, seeing who could get the farthest in their own game. When Steve was clearly beating the older boy, in an effort to distract him, Bucky pressed himself against his back and covered his eyes with his large, warm hands, effectively blocking Steve's vision. At that point Steve couldn't focus anymore. The only thing that he could sense was Bucky's warm chest seeming to breathe for both of them, and all he wanted was for it to be that easy to breathe forever. After he lifted his hands and Steve saw that he had lost he turned around, glaring at the taller boy who just had a smirk on his face. 

Going to the bookstore had also seemingly made Bucky very happy. He browsed the books with fervor and eventually ended up purchasing a copy of _Romeo and Juliet_ for himself and a novel called _Lolita_ that Steve wasn't familiar with. Steve felt bad, not being able to buy all that Bucky wanted on their night out, but the brunette had insisted that he didn't need to spend all of his money on him and that he had cash of his own, assumedly received from his father. When they looked at the decks of cards behind the counter Bucky had his eyes on a set with beautiful pictures of roses on the backs. Steve had asked if roses were his favorite flower, not seeing anything wrong with having one, loving sunflowers himself, and, smiling softly, he said, "Yes. They're so romantic. Don't you agree?" With a shrug, Steve replied that he guessed so, a ruby shade splotched on his cheeks. 

The last stop on their night out is Zoch's, where Carson, the elderly gentleman who owns the store, greets Steve in a way that old friends do and asks who he is tagging along with, not seeing him enter the store with anyone else before. Steve introduces him to Bucky, who suddenly seems very shy and who stares at Carson with an intensity that he doesn't quite understand the origin of. They stand in front of the glass-encased counter where all of the candy is on display, from Nerds to Candy Buttons. Steve grabs several packs of Now and Later's from the second lowest shelf, lays them out on the counter along with his remaining cash, and then turns to Bucky. "Want some? These are my favorite. They're really good!" He shouts over the Christmas music now loudly playing from the store's speakers. 

Bucky seems to close in on himself as he declines Steve's offer, face oddly expressing a small amount of discomfort. "No, thank you," he says quietly, clasping his hands at his waist. 

"Well, what do you like? You can have anything you want!"

"No, I'm good. I...," he hesitates with a huff. "I don't really _eat_ that stuff." Bucky seemed frustrated and frankly a little disgusted with the whole situation so Steve decides it's best not to push him further to at least _try_ the candy. 

"Oh. Ok. This is it, then," he says to Carson who begins to ring it up with a poorly hidden questioning look. Of course Bucky didn't have to like the same kind of candy Steve did, that would be ridiculous to get hurt over, but Steve can't help but feel a little disappointed over the fact that Bucky isn't even going to get anything. He already was a little self-conscious about the fact that he actually looked forward to eating the candies at the end of each difficult day and Bucky's grossed-out look pertaining to the Now and Later's simply solidified the notion that it was such a childish thing to do. What was he thinking, taking Bucky, a sixteen year-old, to go get candy and expecting him to actually enjoy it? 

Steve tries his best to hide his dismay but he must be doing a piss-poor job of it because when he grabs his candy from the counter and looks back to Bucky the boy now has a guilty look on his face. "Well, maybe I can try just one..."

Steve's face lights up. "Really?" Unwrapping one of the packs, he takes out a red piece and holds it out for Bucky to take, who ambivalently puts it on his tongue and closes his mouth, chewing it slowly and almost with an air of calculation. Steve is watching for his reaction, and while Bucky is masticating he shoots a small smile at him with eyebrows raised, nodding and swallowing it down. It only takes a few moments, however, for Bucky to dash out the door and into the parking lot. 

When Steve exits the store to meet him and find out what's wrong he sees Bucky retching in the parking lot, right hand braced on the trunk of a car in an attempt to hold his body up while he violently vomits the contents of his stomach onto the pavement. Moving closer it's revealed that Bucky is paler than he normally is (if that's even possible) and that there's a sheen of sweat on his forehead. Steve feels a terrible shame well up in his stomach; he did this to him. It's all his fault. Bucky continues to lean on the car for a couple of minutes after he's done puking before he stands back up on wobbly feet, breaths shallow. The ice in his eyes meets the concerned, tranquil waters that are Steve's. "I'm sorry," Bucky whispers, and that's when Steve tentatively steps toward him, hating to see the strong, handsome boy in front of him look so small and scared and ill. Steve hates that Bucky has to look like him for one second, so he closes the gap between them and hugs him tightly, tucking his head under his chin and placing his cheek upon his chest. The taller boy seems surprised at first, limbs stiffening, but eventually relaxes into the touch, hands mimicking Steve's and going to wrap around his back. They sit like that for a moment before Bucky whispers, "Do you like me, Stevie?"

"Yeah," Steve mumbles. "A lot." He doesn't know how to simplify that statement, though. Doesn't know how to categorize the endless amount of admiration that he has for the older boy, and he's thankful that Bucky doesn't ask him to, because it might end up in him saying something sinful or stupid. It doesn't matter right now, anyway. All that matters is that they are here like this, together and enjoying each other's company.

"Would you still like me...even if I wasn't a boy?" 

A beat passes. "What do you mean, Buck?" He doesn't end up replying to Steve's question, so the blonde just says, "I dunno. I guess so." He isn't sure if that is the answer Bucky wanted, but then again, what kind of question is that? They're still hugging, and Steve can feel the cold tip of Bucky's nose drag along the space between his shoulder and his neck, as if he's trying to draw a straight line with it. It startles Steve so he pulls back, confused by the motion, and he catches a glimpse of the brunette's eyes, pupils blown with barely a sliver of blue left. They're virtually black, and the light pole must be playing tricks on Steve's eyes because he swears he can see flecks of orange and red at the outer edges. When Steve pulls back Bucky seems to be shaken out of a stupor, hands falling to his sides while he also takes a step back. "Why do you ask?"

He looks down at his black sneakers while responding. "No reason. Should we head back, now?"

As they walk back to the apartments side by side among the sounds of train horns being sounded nearby Steve eventually asks Bucky, "So, where are you from? How come you moved here?"

"We...we move around a lot," he answers, hands shoved in his pockets.

"Yeah, but why would you move _here_? I hate it here. The people here are just...they're stupid. Someday I'm gonna leave, Bucky, and I'm never going to come back." Steve speaks with the ambition of someone who has been thinking about their plan of escape for a long time, whether it's from a prison or their hometown. They're back in the courtyard now at one of the corners, still standing together, and Bucky suddenly removes his hand from his pocket and moves it towards Steve's, as if he wants to _hold it_. Steve catches the motion with his eye before it happens and his breath hitches in his throat. No one has necessarily held his hand before, and the fear is present that that's not even what the brunette intends to do, but Steve wants it to happen. Wants to feel Bucky's hand slot next to his perfectly and stay there like that, an immovable, grounding force forever. He thought that only girls held hands with their friends, but maybe boys did it, too. The blonde would be the last person to know. Steve's hand starts to stray towards Bucky's as well before he hears a shrill yell, startling him and causing him to pull back. " _Steve!_ " It's his mother. 

Instantaneously angry and embarrassed, Steve turns to face Bucky, who has a sympathetic look on his face and whose hands are back in his pockets. "Oh, God. Hang on," he mutters. Steve rounds the edge of the courtyard that they're standing in so he can see his apartment, where his mom is standing out on the patio with her arms crossed. "What?", he yells up at her. 

"Where were you? I called for you!"

"I'm right here!"

"You promised me you wouldn't leave the courtyard, Steve!"

"Mom, I've been here the whole time!" He petulantly yells back in response. 

"Well, come up! It's time for dinner." 

"Okay." He traces his steps in the snow to go back to meet Bucky but when he gets there, Bucky is already gone, so Steve just decides to head inside. When he's done trudging up the stairs to his floor, boots leaving wet footprints, he sees the boy leaning against the wall opposite of his apartment door with a small smile. "Goodnight, pal," Bucky says. Steve beams and nods in response, heading into his apartment while Bucky goes to do the same.

❅❅❅

After they ate dinner in considerable silence his mother ended up passing out on the couch again while the evening news was on. Apparently she just needed to wait to do it so that she could catch Steve doing something wrong. At least, that's what it felt like. While Steve was wiping down the table he heard the newscaster on TV 6 start to delve into the top story that night, which had something to do with Scottie, so he stopped what he was doing and pulled up a dining room chair next to his mother's sleeping form on the couch. "Police say an unidentified man has been arrested in connection with the recent ritual murder of a local teen who received high school honors, Scott Briggs. The subject is hospitalized in critical condition with severe, self-inflicted acid burns over his face and torso, making it impossible so far for authorities to determine his identity..." Steve felt a wave of relief wash through him. _Finally. They had caught him._ Now Scottie's family could have some closure and Steve wouldn't have to worry about someone who wanted to hurt him lurking around every corner. Well, besides Brock and his friends. 

He went out into the courtyard with his Rubik's Cube in the hopes that Bucky would come out again and spend time with him and maybe even try to hold his hand but he didn't, sadly, so Steve only sat on the jungle-gym and stared up at Bucky's cardboard-covered windows while snow started to fall around him, wondering what the boy was doing. 

When Steve went to bed that night clad in boxers and a gray sleep shirt he didn't get to sleep uninterrupted, because he was thrown into a very realistic dream, one that had him laying in a room that looked exactly like his own. The only thing that let him know that it was a dream was the fact that there was a knocking at his partially open second-floor window. " _Steve_ ," an extremely familiar voice hoarsely whispers out on the ledge. It sounds like-

"Bucky?" Steve mumbles, still half-asleep.

"Can I come in?" Out of it, he starts to rise to open the window, still facing away from it, but Bucky makes an alarmed sound akin to a hiss. "No, wait! Don't look at me." Steve groans in response, flopping back down on the bed and into his covers and already starting to drift away again. "But you have to say it, Stevie. That I can come in."

"You can come in," he mutters with a yawn separating the two fragments of the sentence. 

"Close your eyes," Bucky orders.

"They're already closed, punk." Steve can barely hear Bucky coming in through the window but he can faintly hear a noise that is similar to someone throwing their clothes to the floor, a noise whose implications do not even register in his sleep-addled brain. There's a slight dip in the bed then as Bucky situates himself so that he is lying down behind Steve, their skin almost making contact. "How'd you get up here, Buck?"

The older boy simply answers, "I climbed."

Steve lets out a soft chuckle. "Yeah, right." He shifts his body a little to try to get a bit more comfortable in the bed and ends up moving an inch backwards towards Bucky because of the valley that exists between their bodies. It wouldn't be so awkward, except Steve is pretty sure that his ass touches the bare flesh of Bucky's soft cock, which then twitches against the crease of his cheeks. Steve immediately tries to wiggle his way away from Bucky in the bed and back to his original spot but a strong, cold grip on his left hip stops him. "You're not wearing anything," he whispers in a surprised voice. "And you're freezing!" 

"I'm sorry. Is that gross?" Steve thinks that he can feel Bucky's penis harden against him but he isn't one-hundred percent sure because he's never felt the sensation before and if it is happening, no one says or does anything pertaining to it. 

"N-no." A moment passes. "Bucky?"

"Yeah?" His voice is husky.

Steve takes a deep breath, willing himself to speak what he wants. If this is just a dream, everything will be fine. "Will you go steady with me?" 

"What do you mean?"

"I mean...will you be my boyfriend?" 

Bucky sighs, starting to rub his cold thumb up and down on the skin of Steve's hip. "Stevie, I'm not a boy." 

"You're not a boy?" It's such a weird thing for someone to say, but the even weirder thing about it is that Steve tries to find a silver lining in it. If Bucky's not a boy, then they wouldn't be two boys together, right? And God and Father Zola and his mother wouldn't see a problem with it either, right? His hopeful train of thinking perfectly exemplifies the way that a sheltered, lonely little boy would think in order to gain some company for himself. 

"No."

"Then, what are you?"

"I don't know. I'm..." Bucky hesitates, sorrow present in his voice. "I'm nothing." His thumb stalls on Steve's hip. 

Steve immediately starts to protest. "No, Bucky, you-you're _everything_. But it's okay if you don't want to be my boyfriend. You don't have to make stuff up..." 

"Can't we just keep things the way they are, Stevie?"

"Yeah, of course," Steve splutters, hurt. He should've known that by asking he would make Bucky uncomfortable. Boys being together with boys is wrong, after all. Why did he have to go and ruin the great thing they have? Now Bucky's going to think that he's a freak, just like everyone else does. He stays silent after that, hands going to wrap around himself.

"Do you...have to do anything special...when you go steady?" The brunette finally asks.

"No." He's pretty sure that couples do what they're doing right now all the time, like Romeo and Juliet. 

"So, everything stays the same?" 

Steve pouts a little. "Yeah, Buck."

There's a beat before the older boy speaks again, as if he's thinking on the proposition with great concern. "Okay. We can go steady, doll," he simply replies, a smile evident in his voice.

Steve tries his best to hide his joy but clearly fails, chest rising and falling faster and cheeks rosy with mirth. "Really?" 

"Really." He can feel Bucky's gaze on his back and the hard line of his cock still pressed against his ass, seeming to have thickened in the past few minutes. It feels so big and heavy against him and he really doesn't know what to do about it. Should he do anything about it? Does Bucky know that its pressing into him? He decides to ignore it, not wanting to mess this up, and Bucky seems to, too, even though it feels like it should be painful. Bucky reaches for one of Steve's hands that he has wrapped around himself and tugs it back towards him, placing it on his face where there's the slightest presence of stubble and covering it with his own hand. Steve lets out a sleepy sigh of contentment. His hand sits like that for a while before Bucky gives it back to him and goes to lay his hand on Steve's cheek instead, caressing the baby-soft skin there with gentle, sweeping movements. They drift off to sleep that way, touching each other tenderly. 


	7. Stop Standing There

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Hey, ho, let's go!" - The Ramones, 'Blitzkrieg Bop'

When Steve woke up the next morning to get ready for school Bucky wasn't laying next to him anymore, and Steve decided that that was probably for the best since his mother also got up around this time for work and the possibility of her walking in on them made a shiver go down his spine. He walked over to the window, still half-believing that what had happened last night had been a dream, and what he saw when he got there was a smear on the ledge outside of what appeared to be blood. _Was Bucky hurt last night and was that why he had asked to come into Steve's room?_ _How did he even get up here?_ These thoughts rattled around in Steve's brain, but the realization that the events of last night had to be somewhat real took precedence. And that meant that Steve had asked Bucky to be his boyfriend. And that meant that Bucky had said yes. It took all of his self-control not to giddily hop on his bed and jump on it out of sheer excitement like a child would after hearing that they were getting a puppy for their birthday. There was a want present to tell everyone he knew about it and shout that James Buchanan Barnes was his boyfriend from the rooftops but he knew that he would never be able to because it was technically wrong. Was Steve wrong for wanting it? A handwritten note placed on his bedside table caught his attention and he shelved his worry about the schematics of their relationship for later. 

It was written in cursive script on the cutesy stationery that Steve already had sitting on the table that hadn't been used in forever, and it read:

_I must be gone and live, or stay and die. - Bucky ✗_

Steve recognized that the quote was from Romeo and Juliet even though he hadn't paid much attention to the overall plot in class. Maybe he would try to read it again himself and bring new meaning to it since Bucky seemed to like it so much. The pen that Bucky used to write the note still rested on the stationery, haphazardly teetering at the corner of the page. As Steve undressed to get into the shower he couldn't stop a smile from creeping onto his face and permanently staying there, for the time being. 

While Steve was washing his body in the shower his hand tentatively went up to his face where Bucky had caressed it and he let out a deep sigh. It had felt so nice and he wished that they could've spent the day like that, just laying together in the same bed and holding each other. Steve had a school trip to an ice rink today for gym class, though, and he really didn't want to miss it for fear of disappointing Mr. Erskine. Besides, he didn't even know where Bucky went during the day, anyway, not answering his question about where he went to school. To try to replicate the nice, warm feeling that was in his stomach last night he hitched the water temperature up higher, no doubt leaving his skin an angry red color, but Steve didn't care. Anything to get closer to how he felt when he was with Bucky. His hand was still on his face, and Steve suddenly got self-conscious that he shouldn't be fawning over the touch as much as he was, or that somehow someone would be able to tell that it was another boy who touched him there. Bucky had probably touched a lot of people like that, whereas Steve couldn't remember the last time he was the subject of such a tender sensation. Even if they were dating now, Steve still felt that what he was doing was pathetic. His inner thoughts were his downfall, as they always were, and in the end he decided to harshly scrub the skin of his cheek so much that it hurt. Bucky's phantom caress still remained. 

❅❅❅

The makeshift ice rink that his class was going to for the day was about twenty minutes away from the school, nestled in a forest of pines and firs that people often visited to chop down their Christmas trees. His family had never been those types of people. On the way there Steve had started rereading Romeo and Juliet with the extra time but he soon found that the language utilized was extremely confusing. When they arrived he saw that the rink was about twenty feet wide and the surface already had long streaks across it from ice skates past. The purpose of the trip was for the class to play ice-hockey, and as the students disembarked from the bus the strings of ice skates and gloves were dangling from their hands. Steve didn't have a pair of ice skates, and while there were a couple of spares, he decided to let other kids have them, sure that they would enjoy playing ice-hockey more than him and actually add to the overall experience of the game. Mr. Erskine had directed the kids without skates to just practice the swinging position, so Steve supposed he would sit at the edge of the ice with his hockey stick and glide it across the ice back and forth as if he was shuffling around an invisible puck with the sound of his classmates surely screaming in the background. "Everyone careful for holes in ice! Stay away from holes! We will be watching so you play safe!" Mr. Erskine shouted as the students dispersed. 

A rough hand grabs Steve's bony shoulder as he's practically sliding across the slippery ground to go to the edge of the rink. He visibly bristles as an all-too familiar voice harshly whispers in his ear. _Of course this would happen to him today. Why wouldn't it?_ "I hope you've been learning how to swim, little girl, because today, you're going swimming," Brock snarls, and his friends snicker in response. Nausea roils in Steve's stomach as they then skate away as quickly as they came towards the center of the ice, and trepidation fills him to the brim. Well, so much for practicing his hockey swing. Now he would have to worry about watching out for Brock and his stupid friends all day. He really hoped that they were only joking, but Steve was rarely that lucky, and besides, this was the perfect day to do it. All of the teachers' attention would be on the other students, and Steve would drown in the ice-cold water while nobody noticed and while Brock would have a huge smirk on his face because he would have finally gotten what he always wanted. Instead of swinging his stick he decided to strengthen his grip on it and thwack against the snow-covered ground, telling himself that it was only a mere precaution. Bucky's voice rang in his ears: _"Hit them. Hit them harder than you_ dare _, and then they'll stop, Steve."_

Brock and his friends did end up coming back over to him when there was a supposed lull in the hockey game and when Mr. Erskine was busy dividing up the teams again. Smart. As they approach Steve's body goes as stiff as a board and sweat perspires where he is tensely clutching the stick's handle in his palm. Brock smiles at him with a sick sort of sweetness. "Is she ready for a swim?" He asks, innocently enough.

Steve stays silent and sets his jaw as he holds out his hockey stick in front of him like a sword with shaking hands, just like Brock did when he thwapped him with the torn-off car antenna in the bathroom. He feels like one of the warriors from the various video games that are at the arcade. The jitter of his hold is obvious, and Brock, Jasper, and Jack boisterously laugh when they take it in. "What 'aya think you're gonna do with that?" Brock spits. 

"I'm gonna hit you with it...if you try anything," he responds, trying to sound as brave as possible. There's a nervous vibrato to his voice as he says it that just can't be helped. 

Brock then takes a step more akin to a stomp closer to him with a sneer on his face and his arms crossed. "Really? Wow." He looks around at Jasper and Jack with a mocking air as he says it. "Well, you know what I think?" One step closer. "I don't think you're going to do a _fucking_ thing. I think you're just gonna stand there, like the little girl you are, and I'm gonna grab that stick..." Brock points to it with a quivering finger. "And I'm gonna ram it _right_ up your ass." A tense beat passes as Brock's expression hardens. "And then, _you're going swimming_." 

Jasper chimes in. "Dude, Mr. Erskine is over there checking us out, so let it go. Come on, we'll beat his little ass later." Jack nods in agreement, trying to salvage what little reputation they have left as a group.

"Gimme the stick," Brock commands, ignoring them, but Steve doesn't dare move. It's too late to turn back now. If he did, the beating would only be that much worse. He could practically feel the ice-cold water biting into his skin as he's plunged under with no mercy. Besides, what would Bucky think of him if he ended up surrendering at the first threat of trouble? No one wants to date a weakling who can't hold his own in a fight, especially one who originally puts up a tough front only to shortly crumble. Steve had a frail body, he couldn't do anything about that, but he could do something about the people that teased him about it and made him feel worthless. He could do this so that his mother wouldn't have to worry about him getting hurt and so that maybe Bucky could be proud of him and tell him how brave that he was. Steve Rogers wanted to be brave, always has, but never exactly had something (or someone) to be brave _for_. Maybe it would be different now. 

His expression of determination wavers when he thinks of Bucky showering him with compliments. The thoughts virtually make him go soft, relaxing his facial features while his knees start to tremble. It's an unconscious response that Steve wasn't expecting and it hits him so hard because the notion is impossibly intertwined with so much _want_ and _need_ that has been bottled up. The want for someone to tell him how good he is (what a good boy he is) and how proud they are of how he's been holding up these past few months, even when everything has been going wrong. The need to be praised and shown affection when it doesn't involve coercing him to tell a lawyer what a good home one of his parents has and all that they have done to accommodate him in these emotionally troubling times. The yearning to be loved for who he is as a person and not as a pawn.

It's a major point of weakness for him in the altercation, and an obvious one at that. Brock clearly notices this, watching him like a predator watches their prey, and that's why he takes this moment to lunge at Steve with a yell in an attempt to tackle him to the ground and take his stick away. Steve breaks out of his reverie just in time, though, by some grace of the god that hasn't been very present lately, and with a strong, swift motion he brings down the hockey stick on the side of Brock's head right above his ear, making a loud thwacking sound as it comes into contact with the skin. What was even louder was Brock's blood-curdling scream in response to the blow as he staggers back on the icy ground, immediately bringing a hand to his ear, which was quickly covered in a shade of maroon. Blood spilled down from the wound onto the originally pristine white snow. Steve just stood there in shock as he watched Brock cry from what he did, not knowing what to do with himself. A feeling of triumph immediately welled up in his stomach, but mixed with that was the underlying guilt of causing blood to pour out of someone else's body as it once did his. Revenge was bittersweet, as the saying went. Jasper was asking if he was "fucking crazy" but when it reached Steve's ears it was muted and didn't register in his brain. Brock's shrill screams alert Mr. Erskine to where they are standing at the edge of the ice but before he can make any headway in going over to them even louder and more horrified screams than Brock's erupt from a gaggle of girls huddled around something in the ice. Jasper and Jack go to try to apply pressure to Brock's ear with their mittens while Steve, in a foggy haze, takes little steps toward where most of his classmates and Mr. Erskine are now crowding with some still bawling. What Steve swears he sees is a large chunk of ice that has settled onto the threshold of the area, rocking against the other masses in a rhythmic motion while half of it is still submerged. The part of the ice that has met the scrutiny of the sun reveals what appears to be the bulky torso of a frozen corpse. 

❅❅❅

His visit to the principal's office with his mother went okay, and by okay he meant that he escaped expulsion but was dealt a in-school suspension lasting three days. Steve didn't care, though. He thought it was entirely worth it. Besides, it meant that he could have time to himself and away from his judging classmates and Brock for the time being. The principal had a judging expression on her face the entirety of their meeting, one of pity and perhaps contempt for someone as small and insignificant as him to be able to cause such big problems for her. During the meeting Sarah Rogers pleaded with her that something like this had never happened and never will happen again. "Steve is a good boy," she sobbed. Only then did the principal's face soften. Reflecting on it, Steve didn't know if he was grateful for his mother's sentiments or would have rather done without them. 

The car ride home was silent, for the most part. His mother had only admonished him when they pulled into the parking lot of their apartment block. Her features were hardened and Steve was afraid that if he ending up saying anything her resolve would crumble and she would burst into tears. "You're gonna have to pray long and hard on this, Steven. Pray to God and ask for forgiveness for what you did to that poor boy." She exited the car soon after that, hiking her purse up on her shoulder and striding towards the door. Steve sat in the car for a while after that, silent tears rolling down his cheeks, feeling horrible for making his mother so upset. But what could he do? He had to stick up for himself, and it was ultimately unfortunate that Sarah couldn't understand that. The principal had said that she didn't want to see Steve go down the wrong path, but if anything, what he did stopped that from happening, right? Stopped the possibility of _his_ body being found submerged in the ice. 

When he entered their apartment his mother was already on the phone, no doubt trying to get through to his dad to tell him what Steve had done. The action made him shiver. Steve didn't want his dad to know because it would probably deter him from talking to him even further. It seemed like Sarah wasn't having much luck, though. "Hello?...Is Joseph there?...Excuse me?...This is his _wife_ , who is this?" As Steve is taking off his coat and still listening to his mother's half of the conversation (which she seemed heavily immersed in) the door bell rings, an annoying, high-pitched sound that Steve wishes he could make go away. All the sounds that he's hearing are too much for him right now. He figures that he'll have to get it, and as he trudges towards the door Steve hears his mother say, "Well, _hello_ , Cindy...Could you please tell Joseph that I called, and that I need to talk to him?...About our _son_?...It's urgent...Yes -- if he even gives a shit..."

Standing outside their door is a policeman, one with brown hair almost flopping down into his eyes and thick, black-rimmed glasses that make him look professional. He's shorter than other adult males, Steve notices, but still much taller than him. The gold nameplate next to his badge says _Helmut Zemo._ "Hello," he greets after clearing his throat. "Is your mom or dad home?" 

"Uh, yeah..." Steve is suddenly worried that this is about Brock and that he may have escaped a worse punishment at school because the police were going to take matters into their own hands. Surely some of the things that Brock has done to him in the past would have to warrant the same fate, no? But then again, Brock didn't let himself get caught. Steve did. He isn't sure he could survive what they might have planned for him. He did assault someone, after all, so juvenile detention might be in order. If he was sent away, he doubts that either of his parents would come to visit him, especially his father, and the other kids would definitely not be kind, being at the facility for a more valid reason than him. It would be kids like Brock. Plus, he was the perfect punching bag, so the possibility of him dropping dead the first day he was there was plausible. Maybe Bucky could come visit in the nights, though, and they could play cards through the glass pane used for visitors while they talked about pinball machines and the books that Bucky had read lately. It was hardly a optimal outlook, but it was the best that he could come up with at the moment with his suddenly extremely tired brain. Nonetheless, he turns away from the man and signals his mother with a shout.

"Thank you, Cindy...goodbye," she finishes up on the phone, now wearing an annoyed expression on her face that means she is not to be trifled with at the moment. "What?" Sarah asks, exasperated. Steve motions to the doorway where the police officer is still standing there, looking sympathetic with his hands in his pockets. Her tone softens and she dusts off her shirt as if her heated conversation left blackened residue on her clothes. "Oh. What's this about?"

"I'm afraid there's been an incident with one of your neighbors here in the complex, so we're just going around and talking to people, see if anyone knows anything," he explains. 

"What kind of incident?" In response to the question Officer Zemo glances at Steve and he suddenly feels as if he is an intruder in his own house and that this man knows and is going to punish him for it. His mother must pick up on this look as well, because she then tells Steve to go to his room. He's disappointed that he doesn't get to know what's going on even though he lives here, too, and the policeman shoots an apologetic smile his way as he leaves. However, if he did stay, the man probably would talk down to him, and that was the last thing Steve wanted right now, especially after his experience in the principal's office. 

When he gets to his room he immediately notices a cacophony of lights shining outside his window. Gazing into his telescope he sees that the lights are coming from Mr. Sherman's apartment, a mixture of flashlight beams and neon blue rays illuminating the space. Numerous policeman are there and they all have rubber gloves on, putting markers on the floor and scouring the surfaces of his gym equipment assumedly for evidence. They had to bring a crane to the ice-rink to extract what parts they found of his dismembered body out of the ground after they cut into the ice with saws that made a horrible screeching sound. It was all so tragic. Mr. Sherman was a good man, from what he could tell. He always said hi to Steve when he passed him on the sidewalk, unlike some neighbors, and now he was gone, life unjustly taken from him. Steve goes to sit on his bed and leans against the wall while bundled in his blankets, tapping his fist against it. He wants to ask Bucky if he saw what was happening outside and tell him the events that took place that day, but there is no knock to greet him in return. He eventually hears a knocking, but it's not from the other side of the plaster. No, it sounds like someone is knocking on Bucky's apartment door, assumedly the police officer, and no one is answering. Ultimately the policeman gives up, his footsteps receding down the hall, and at that point Steve decides to give up as well, turning his light off with a sigh and climbing back into bed to be lulled into an uneventful and deep sleep. 


	8. No Risk, No Reward

The day after the incident was his first day of in-school suspension, and it wasn't horrible, just like Steve expected it wouldn't be. He got to catch up on his school work and read more of Romeo and Juliet, which he was finally beginning to grasp the basis of. Although he was mentally cognizant of the fact that their overall relationship was tumultuous at best, it still sent shards of mixed emotions flying towards Steve's fragile heart. The two young characters seemed to have a spark of a true bond between them regardless of their ages, seeing whole constellations in each other's eyes and claiming to not have previously witnessed true beauty until the image of the other's naked, blossoming body was revealed to their eyes. The passionate words on the page reminded him of what his mother and father used to seem to have: an all-encompassing love for each other. Steve's dad used to say that Steve's mom was like a good song that you never got tired of listening to, even if it was played on the radio all of the time, because it was just so charming and delightful to hum along with it. He guessed that even timeless classics could become obsolete, though, and eventually toes stopped tapping to them on the hardwood floors of dance halls. It seemed so unfair to Steve that all of this beauty and passion existed and none of it could ever completely be played out because their love was doomed from the start due to the people around them and society's stupid rules. Why did there need to be rules when it came to love? Why couldn't Steve just love the one who made him feel secure and who wrapped his arms around him when he was visibly shivering while sitting in the courtyard? 

When he gets out of the classroom that he was designated to for suspension and eventually trots down the school steps with his puffer jacket and heavy backpack on to begin his walk home, he notices that Brock and his friends are out on the sidewalk in front of the building to his left, huddled together and passing around what looks like a new carton of cigarettes that was no doubt purchased from the gas station down the block. Steve quickly ducks behind one of the over-arching brick columns that bracket the stone stairs and takes a deep breath in of the December air. The last thing he needs is to be confronted by them, especially after what he did yesterday. That was why in-school suspension was so nice. Besides, he was in a bit of a rush to get to the bookstore before his mother came home. He watches them for a moment while he's flush with the brick, contemplating whether he should just simply wait until they disperse or try to blend in with the crowd of students heading towards the parking lot to their respective vehicles. Another person moves to join their small group, coming up behind Brock, who has a white sort of cotton-pad stuck over where Steve had struck him yesterday. It almost looks like a singular speaker of a headphone. The guy is obviously older than them by at least two years, hovering over them in height and having hints of scruff on his face which he's obviously proud of. Without warning, he takes Brock's head in between his hands and wrestles it around playfully yet also brutally. "How's the cripple?" He teases in a loud voice. Jasper and Jack laugh in response.

Brock shoves the guy off with jerky movements, a noticeably pissed expression clouding his features as he covers his ear with his right hand. "Jesus Christ, dude! Look out!" Steve would be lying if he said he wasn't becoming intrigued by the events that were unfolding in front of him. 

The guy laughs, leaning over and placing his hands on his knees as if it's the funniest thing in the world. "Man, that kid _wailed_ on your ass." He then straightens up again and proceeds to yell in Brock's bad ear. "Can you still hear me, bro?" 

"Stop, Schmidt!" Brock petulantly shouts in protest. _Of course_ , Steve realizes. The guy is Brock Rumlow's older brother Schmidt, a teenager who was on his third year of being a senior and seemingly gunning for a fourth. He hadn't seen him around the school very often, only catching a glimpse here and there in the hallway, but he figured that was probably for the best. Schmidt was definitely just like his brother in terms of being a bully, and Steve didn't need a bigger, stronger Brock tracking him down as well. Brock socks his brother in the arm in an attempt to push him away but he only grins at the movement, as if it was the successful outcome he was trying to make happen all along. 

"You going home?" Schmidt asks, slinging an arm across Brock's back and keeping it there in a relaxed position. 

"No, we're going over to Jasper's house..."

"Well, can I borrow your keys? I forgot mine. _Please?_ " He draws out the syllables like a child would when they're begging for a later bedtime for a snack before dinner. A method that, for the most part, effectively crumbles the stone-walled resolves of its victims. Brock seems to cave, reaching around into his backpack and grabbing his keys so that he can drop them into Schmidt's waiting, outstretched palm with a quiet jingle. After shoving the key ring into his jean pocket Schmidt then ruffles his brother's hair with a firm hand. "Thanks. See you at home, little girl." 

Brock instantly shoves his brother off of him again and while Schmidt walks away he repeatedly yells at Jasper and Jack to shut up after they appear to be laughing at the display that was in front of them. Jasper tries to deny their pleasure but can't help the smile that's still plastered on his face (and Jack's) so it earns him a hard smack in the back of the skull which causes him to wince and groan. As Brock, Jasper, and Jack begin to leave and head toward the desolate alleyway on the left side of the school building to smoke Steve lets out a audible sigh, smiling to himself. The tables have turned for the boy who has made his life a living hell day in and day out. He is the little girl now. He is the weak one. Karma has done its work, albeit a little late, and things are finally starting to look up for Steve Rogers, whose shell of protection around his heart, body, and mind is splintering and cracking under the pressure of the good news brought to him, like an egg shell being fractured to reveal the yolk. When Steve ducks out from behind the column and starts on his way to the bookstore the grin is still there. It simply cannot be helped. 

❅❅❅

"Bucky, I did it!" Steve whispers in an excited tone. They're both sitting on the jungle-gym and Steve is watching Bucky work the Rubik's Cube in his hands for what seems like the millionth time. He never tires of it, though. Watching him work makes an ethereal and content feeling bloom in Steve's chest that he isn't sure how to classify so he doesn't. Steve feels he could fall asleep that way regardless of the temperature outside, leaning against Bucky's arm and melting into his soft skin while Bucky voices what he's doing to the Cube to solve it in a soft rumble that almost makes Steve want to purr like a kitten with how nice it sounds to his ears. Bucky is currently sitting on the platform above his so Steve has to twist his body around and crane his neck upward to see what he's doing. They're both coincidentally wearing soft white t-shirts that billow in the light breeze and jeans, Bucky's being black and Steve's being blue. He thinks that Bucky's pair has rips in them, but he isn't sure if they were put there purposefully or not. 

"You did what?" Bucky asks with an impassive expression on his face, features smooth and unchanging. Usually Steve would take that as a cue that someone is not interested in hearing what he has to say and stop talking, but with Bucky, he almost always looks that way. Bucky even took it upon himself to apologize to Steve about it once, saying that he wasn't very good at conversating with people one-on-one (which he could definitely relate to) and didn't really know the expressions to make to show that he was listening. He just promised to Steve with a genuine and serious look on his face that he was always hanging on to his every word, and Steve believed him. Bucky didn't smile much, either, but in the rare moments that he did Steve felt the cliché feeling of having his breath stolen away; it was just the most beautiful thing and he wished he had the ability to make it happen all the time. 

"They were gonna push me into a hole in the ice, so I took my hockey stick and hit Brock really hard in the head. He had to go to the hospital and I was almost expelled, but I did it. What you said. I stuck up to them." 

Bucky looks surprised, seemingly taking that information in with raised eyebrows before gently setting the Rubik's Cube on the platform he's sitting on and gracefully sliding down next to where Steve is sitting without a sound. "Steve," he breathes, taking one of his hands and cradling the side of Steve's face with it. His cold fingers in contact with his heated skin make a snapshot of the moment, barely stinging the flesh with their temperature to make the mental imprint of the deft fingertips last forever. On Bucky's exhale a plume of white smoke pushes out of his parted mouth from the cold. 

"Yeah?" 

He leans his head closer to Steve's, still cradling his face with one hand, and before the blonde can fight against the muggy, effervescent haze of his mind that appeared when his name was breathlessly said like that Bucky is closing the distance in between their faces to plant a chaste kiss on his rosy cheek. Bucky's lips have a hint of chill to them but they are plush and feel so nice against Steve's skin, especially when he lets them rest there for a few seconds after the initial contact before drawing away and placing his hand back down on his own thigh. Steve is taken aback, jostled by the fact that Bucky just kissed his cheek ( _Steve Roger's cheek_ ) and also by how good it had felt to have his lips on him even though they didn't press against his own. That confusion quickly melts away though as Steve tries to stay in the moment, now positively beaming because _Bucky Barnes just kissed him_. When he makes eye contact with Bucky his pupils are no doubt blown and Bucky offers a small, proud smile while leaning against the bars of the jungle-gym. An idea strikes Steve. "Hey, you wanna go somewhere with me?" 

The brunette tilts his head, obviously intrigued by the mysterious air of Steve's question. "Where?"

"C'mon, I'll show you." With that, Steve rises from the green platform and plants his boots in the snow, making a soft crunching noise as he does so. He then turns and, tentatively, holds out a small hand for Bucky to take. Bucky obliges, intertwining his long fingers with Steve's own to hold them in a firm grip that Steve doesn't mind while he slips off of the platform as well, letting the other boy lead the way as they walk back towards the apartment buildings. Bucky's bare feet leave prints in the silken snow. 

Where Steve wants to take him involves going down a set of shabby stone stairs into the frozen ground on one side of the apartment where a concrete-lined passage is waiting behind a silver-plated door that has a broken deadlock hanging off of it. Naked bulbs hang from the ceiling in the hallway below to provide some semblance of light in the enclosed space and doors that all look identical to one another line each side of the wall. When Steve comes down here by himself he can't help but think of the basement as some sort of steam-punk labyrinth. The room that they end up standing in front of at the end of the hallway is unlike the others, having multi-colored graffiti sprayed on it and projecting sentiments like "KEEP OUT" or "DEATH AWAITS" in red paint. Bucky looks unaffected by this fact, whereas Steve was positively terrified the first time he saw it. 

There's a gold key resting in dust in a golf ball-shaped hole to the right of the door, which Steve easily plucks out with his nimble fingers and opens the door with, the hinges making an unappealing groan as he does so. The room before them is about the size of a medium-sized bedroom and both the walls and floors are made of gray concrete. A comfy brown couch with arm rests is positioned against the left wall and under it a fluffy beige rug peeks out. Besides the dim white light swaying from the ceiling the only other thing that there is in the space is a green and red Foosball table with matching yellow handles at both ends that are worn from use. Bucky creeps into the room with an attentive eye, looking all around while his fingers lace together behind his back. "So, what do you think?" Steve desperately hopes that Bucky doesn't think it's lame. He loves this place and it would be the perfect spot for them to hang out if they wanted to. Steve could even put his money towards getting more furniture down here for them. 

"It's really cool," Bucky whispers while running a hand across the glass top of the Foosball table. 

"This guy that used to live here, Nick, he was the one who found this place and fixed it up. He and his friends use to smoke and drink down here and stuff but they let me hang out with them sometimes. Nick played Foosball with me, too." Steve smiles and Bucky mimics his expression while going back to stand by him in the middle of the room. "Yeah, he was really cool but he had to move away so he gave me the key, which I still don't even know how he got. I'm pretty sure that there's no adults that know about this place." 

Bucky nods, taking one last glance around the space before focusing his attention on Steve. "So, what did you want to do down here?" The red circles around his eyes become a softer pink in the white light hanging above them and his blue eyes seem to sparkle. 

"Oh, well, um..." Steve rubs the back of his neck and then shoves a hand into his jacket pocket and wraps his fingers around the familiar weight inside of it. "I wanted to give you something. Merry Christmas, Bucky." He takes and holds the object out so that it's exposed to the glow of the bulb while he waits for Bucky to hold his hand out to accept it. It's a small glass paperweight with a round, smooth top and a flat bottom that has a red rose encased inside of it among flecks of gold shavings. 

The older boy seems to freeze for a moment, like he's not exactly comprehending what's happening. "For me?" He eventually asks, tilting his head up and furrowing his brows at Steve. Even confused, he still looks so handsome. 

"Well, yeah. It's your Christmas present, Buck. If you don't like it I'm sure I can still return it and we can go look at other stuff that you might like..." 

Bucky takes the solid weight of the glass from Steve's hand with a tremble, holding it to his chest to peer more closely at the rose inside of it. While he's looking Steve anxiously teeters on the balls of his feet, feeling restless without getting to know Bucky's thoughts right away. The brunette goes to cradle it flush against his chest like a teddy bear before looking at him and finally whispering, "It's beautiful, Stevie. Absolutely beautiful." Bucky then uses his free hand to get a grip on Steve's bony right shoulder and pulls him towards him without effort, earning a startled gasp from the blonde at the display of strength that's quickly cut off by Bucky locking their lips together for a short kiss. Steve's mouth stays still from shock and painful inexperience while Bucky's soft lips open a little and close over his, like he's trying to devour him for all he's worth with a time limit. When Bucky pulls back with a light smack of his lips there's a deep red blush forming on Steve's cheeks that's surely spreading down his neck. "I'm sorry," they both mutter at the same time. 

"I haven't," Steve offers first, as if that explains everything. 

Bucky just chuckles at that, starting to rub a hand up and down the younger boy's arm comfortingly. "It's okay, Stevie. I should've asked first," and he immediately feels like vigorously shaking his head no at that statement like a bobble-head. Steve feels so high from the thought that Bucky wanted to kiss him so he _just did_ , taking what he wanted from him with an air of ease. He was so _strong_ yet so gentle at the same time, giving the best of both worlds. It also helped that Steve really wanted to kiss Bucky. Wanted to be as close to Bucky as humanely possible; he'd never felt that way about anyone else before. A first kiss was something that Steve believed was never going to happen to him, a much too intimate sensation, but with the brunette, all of those forget-about-it firsts seemed to slip away. It didn't matter what they were doing or when, as long as they were touching, and if firsts _were_ taken in consideration, Steve wanted Bucky to be his first everything. 

While Steve is lost in thought he doesn't notice that Bucky is deeply frowning and staring at his gift with a varied measure of concentration and sadness until he speaks up. "I can't accept this, though. I don't have anything to give you in return," Bucky says.

"That's okay. That wasn't the whole point of this, Buck. I just wanted to get you something to show how much I appreciate you being there for me and stuff like that. You don't have to give me anything." It's sad that he thinks he has to get Steve something physical even though him being his boyfriend is the best thing he could ever possibly have. That's why he got it for him — to represent that and to hopefully somehow make up for his physical shortcomings in the relationship.

The frown stays on Bucky's face for a few moments before he hesitantly nods and lifts the corners of his lips up to convert it into a smile purely composed of joy. He then pulls Steve in for a tight hug while the hand with the paperweight still in it goes to rest on his back, simultaneously burrowing Steve's head in his shoulder as he does so. The intoxicating sandalwood smell of Bucky swirls around Steve's delight-addled brain and there is no better word to describe his current feeling than contentedness. Steve swears he can hear his back crack due to the grip. As he's holding him, Bucky murmurs in his ear, "Thank you, doll. I love it. So much. No one has ever gotten me a gift before." 

"I don't know how that's possible. You're the best," Steve replies, but it comes out a little muffled since his mouth is pressed against Bucky's t-shirt. 

When Bucky draws back from the hug and takes one bare-footed step back to gently place the paperweight on the Foosball table Steve can't help but admit that his stomach drops. The moment is over, and with it will go the tender touches and sweet words that Bucky was saying. Bucky always makes him feel good with his presence, don't get him wrong, but he wishes he could always feel like he's floating on air and sinking into a soft cloud, and that happens when Bucky is touching him, complementing him, or calling him names like "doll". It's a selfish want, though, and Steve understands that. Saying nice things to someone like him takes effort, mainly because nice things about him are hard to find, and if Bucky tried to find stuff to say like that all of the time he would surely keel over and die from mental exertion. A hint of sadness coils around Steve's heart but he doesn't show it. 

Or, at least, he thinks he doesn't show it. He must be mistaken, because Bucky is now staring down at him intently. It's not a concerned look, though. Bucky's pupils are dilated, reflecting the bulb above them in tiny dots of white and as far as Steve can tell he hasn't really blinked, either. His lips are parted and his light pink tongue peeks out to sweep against them as though he's looking at something he's hungry for when in reality he's just looking at Steve. A good word to describe how he looks right now would be _feral_ or _predatory._

"What?" Steve asks, suddenly nervous and self-conscious _._

"You're so damn pretty," he breathes, raising a hand to caress the side of his cheek with his thumb while still looking ravenous.

"No, I'm not, Buck. I...I look sickly. I'm sorry." He tilts his head down in shame. Why couldn't Steve just be healthy so that Bucky could say that he was pretty and really mean it?

Bucky brings the same hand that he was touching Steve's face with to rest under his chin and gently move it up with two fingers so that he was now staring up at him. His pointer finger then goes to rest against the middle of Steve's lips, effectively quieting him. Surprisingly, it took a lot of self-control for him to not suck the tip of the finger into his mouth. "Shhhh. You're perfect, my darling." There's a brief pause before he hoarsely adds, "Can I kiss you, Stevie?" 

Steve just enthusiastically nods in response, doubting he'd be able to get a word out with how fast his heart is racing and lungs are pumping and that earns a grin from Bucky as he steps forward again and wraps an arm around Steve's lower back to tug him flush against his broad chest. When their lips meet this time it's much less awkward as Steve tries to mimic the movements of Bucky's mouth and how his plush lips brush against his own in a passionate, sweeping motion as if he can't get enough of him. He assumes that what they are doing would be classified as "making out". Bucky's tongue eventually slips into Steve's mouth and he goes lax in his hold at the new sensation as Bucky tastes him, exploring and laving over surfaces as he goes with a tongue that's a bit cold. The extra dead-weight of Steve's body currently conflicted with bliss doesn't seem to bother Bucky one bit, still holding him with one hand in the same position (not that he was very heavy anyway, but still). As they pull away to catch their breaths (more so Steve) Bucky rasps, "You taste delicious, just like I thought you would." 

Another wave of red splotches Steve's cheeks when he hears that. He's not even really sure what it means, but regardless, Bucky likes the way he tastes. _Delicious,_ apparently. And Steve must like the way Bucky tastes too, _a lot_ , because his dick is starting to harden in his pants with increased blood flow and he has to resist the urge to start squirming with need in front of Bucky. He's had an erection before from watching people kiss on TV and stuff, sure, but he's never actually _done_ anything about it or even do anything himself to cause it because Father Zola said that it would be a sin to do so. Instead, he just prayed that it would go away and stop hurting soon or took a nice, cold shower to banish the heat mainly radiating from his penis. It saved hot water for his mother in the shower in the morning, so it wasn't all bad. He had ejaculated, of course, but that was when he was sleeping and had no control over it. There wasn't much control over it right now, either. If Bucky kisses him again he might actually cum in his pants, and _how embarrassing would that be?_

A small smirk presents itself on Bucky's face, as though he can read Steve's mind or something. His thumb lightly traces the top of Steve's jeans in a sideways motion, making the smaller boy shiver. " _Bucky_ ," he softly pleads, although he doesn't know if it's to stop or keep going. He doubts it's the former. 

"Are you hard?" Bucky whispers, hovering a hand over Steve's crotch where the material is slightly tenting. Steve's dick isn't big by any means but it's not tiny, either. Or, at least, it's not smaller in proportion to the rest of his frail body, so there's no hiding his interest even if it barely shows. Bucky can obviously see it, and his big hand would definitely dwarf it in comparison. That observation is quickly proven when he goes to cup Steve through his blue jeans, touch feather-light. He coos with an amused expression. "Sweet boy." Bucky has never called Steve boy before, but he definitely wouldn't be upset if he became accustomed to calling him that all the time. 

Steve unconsciously jerks away from Bucky's hand, body not knowing if it wants to run away or fit into his palm for better friction. He wants him to touch him, _oh god does he want that,_ but he's also scared. Scared of making a fool of himself and scared that Bucky will change his mind about their relationship after he touches him in such an intimate way. "Have you ever been touched before?"

"N-never," Steve sputters. "Not even by myself." 

Bucky actually audibly groans at that. "You're perfect." He then takes the hand that was hovering away and intertwines it with one of Steve's, bringing it closer to his own crotch. Steve sucks in a breath in anticipation before Bucky places it on the raised front of his jeans. "Feel me," he gasps. "You did this to me." What Steve feels tenting the fabric is a bulge _much_ larger than his, hot and hard against his trembling palm. Bucky softly hisses and throws his head back when Steve's hand first makes contact with it, the fist not holding Steve's clenching and unclenching at his side. " _Fuck."_

"I did this?" He can't help but be in disbelief. 

"Yeah. In fact..." Bucky steps back and goes to sit down on the couch in the room, legs lazily spread across some of the cushions. "I think I know a way that I can show you how much I appreciate you," he muses. "Come stand in front of me."

Steve quickly obeys Bucky's order, cock beginning to throb against the fly of his jeans in what can only be excitement as he moves towards him. When he stands in front of Bucky the brunette looks up at him with an obvious air of adoration that Steve revels in. He's positively beaming and his long eyelashes come to rest just below his brow bone as he focuses all of his attention on Steve while reaching a hand down in between his legs to undo his zipper, which the blonde is extremely distracted by. Eternities pass as Bucky unzips, and Steve assumes that it's all on purpose in order to tease him, which isn't very fair of him at all. Each silver tooth comes apart with its own singular _plink_ and then Bucky is finally sliding his black jeans off of his hips while still sitting and lifting his legs in order to get out of them and place them on the floor next to the couch, pale thighs with a light layer of hair presently under the scrutiny of the white bulb. Next to go are his black boxers, and when those pool around his ankles his exposed cock slaps against the thin material of his shirt which he makes quick work of shucking off as well. Bucky's penis is thick and long, slightly curving at the blunt head as it's erect and visibly throbbing with small pulses. His bare chest is lean and smooth, the beginnings of abs underneath the light-toned skin. Amazed by how attractive Bucky is, saliva starts to fill Steve's mouth. 

Bucky runs a hand through his hair, musing it, before beckoning Steve closer with a curled pointer finger, smirking when he sees that his stare is zeroed in on his cock. Embarrassed, Steve shyly moves forward while Bucky reaches for the waistband of his jeans, tugging them down. Catching on, he tries to help, fumbling while undoing his button and unzipping his fly (much more quicker than Bucky, might he add). When Steve is just left in his gray boxers Bucky tightens his grip on his hips and pulls him forward, taking time to position his small body so that he is virtually straddling his lap on the couch, slim legs draped over Bucky's slightly meatier ones. Once they're together like that Bucky yanks Steve's boxers down and tucks them under his balls. The cold air coming into contact with his dick makes him bristle. His penis stands straightly at attention against his lower stomach, small beads of pre-cum already forming at the flushed pink tip. Their cocks are almost touching in their current position, but not quite. "You're so big," Steve can't help but marvel. 

"And you're so cute," Bucky murmurs, pressing a kiss to his nose. "Do you know how to do this?"

Steve nods in response, adorably making a horizontal "c" shape with his hand. He would just start jerking himself off to confirm, but he feels that he should wait for Bucky to tell him to, and that Bucky wants that as well. He does audibly mewl and piston his hips up, though, when Bucky goes to run his thumb across his slit, smearing pre-cum on the sensitive flesh of his head. "Do you have any lube?" Bucky asks.

"Sure. Well, Nick kept some down here in the couch cushions." He leans to the right while still on Bucky's lap (Bucky moving a hand to his hip for support) and braces his elbow on the cushion so that he can stretch over and dig into the couch, eventually pulling out a white, non-descript tube of lubrication that's half-full. The brunette takes it from him and easily pops off the cap, squirting a dollop onto his fingers that he holds out for Steve to wipe off and take. "Thanks," he says with a blush while Bucky squeezes out more for his own purposes and lathers up his hand, Steve mimicking his ministrations with his tongue poking out the side of his mouth in concentration. 

After both their hands are coated Bucky presses a kiss to Steve's forehead and says, "Do it with me." With that, Bucky wraps his fist around his own aching cock and starts to move it up and down, exhaling sharply and briefly scrunching his eyes closed in pleasure. His balls bounce up and down on every stroke. When Steve completes his first upstroke a loud, high-pitched " _oh_ " escapes from his mouth. The brunette is watching him intently as he does so, expression slack with arousal. The pleasure that it brings him is... is simply _indescribable_. His nerves sing and his heart beats with fervor in his chest. If he wasn't supposed to do this, then why did it feel _so_ _damn good?_ Bucky being there for his first time makes it even better. "Does that feel good?" He whispers after softly chuckling.

The smaller boy doesn't respond with words but instead pants and keeps going, any coherent response that he could possibly form thrown out the window. A short nod is the best he can manage and Bucky appears to understand, using his free hand to brush away the few hairs that are flopping down on Steve's face while he bounces up and down on his lap. Bucky seems to be stroking his length with slow, calculated movements and Steve tries to mimic him but regardless his pace picks up each time his hand slides down to the base of his cock, completely enraptured by the slightly overwhelming sensation that's speedily building to a crescendo. 

"Wait, wait, stop," Bucky breathes, grabbing Steve's wrist in a firm grip and effectively stopping him from continuing and chasing his orgasm. "I don't want you to cum yet."

" _Bucky,"_ Steve whines petulantly, squirming on his lap which makes the older boy stifle a moan. He can't just stop, not after he took his first bite of the apple in the garden and found out how delicious it was. Not when his dick is still painfully hard and begging for the release that's so near. Not when Bucky is looking at him like he wants to devour him in one bite. 

He presses a kiss to his trembling lower lip. "Sweet, needy boy. You'll still get to. I'm just going to make it better for the both of us." A hand goes to his lower back and Bucky shoves Steve forward so that his forehead is now resting against his bare chest, a light sheen of sweat moistening the skin. In the area between them that's bracketed by their thighs their cocks are _so_ close to touching. Bucky's virtually towers over Steve's in the dimmed space; he observes that his is only half of the other's length, but he doesn't particularly mind. Instead it only makes more pre-cum spill out of his slit.

To close the distance between them Bucky hastily sits up more on the couch and then takes _both_ of their dicks in one big hand, hot flesh finally caressing each other in the most intimate of ways. They're both so hard. Steve loudly gasps at the touch, brain finally comprehending that nothing will ever feel as good as when Bucky is handling him (especially his penis). The flesh of his cock is smooth, just like Steve's, and when Bucky begins to jerk both of them off at the same time with a tight grip the slick, rhythmic sound of skin sliding against skin fills the room. It's mesmerizing for Steve to watch the skin shift up and down together on every stroke and bunch up at the head, bringing the same zing of pleasure again and again. Bucky is watching too, but Steve can't tell what's exactly making him so entranced. Maybe it's the fact that Steve is so much smaller than him in comparison and that he's the one that gets to first have his hand on his virgin dick, the first one to utterly debauch him and devastate the innocence that he's so fiercely clung onto until now. 

There's a throbbing vein on the underside of Bucky's upright cock that Steve gets a peek of with every stroke and feels practically buzzing against the sensitive skin of his head that's quickening his descent into releasing. He figures it must be an erogenous zone for the older boy so, experimentally, Steve bucks his hips up against it, trying to make his dick slide up the whole length of his shaft and provide more direct pressure on the vein. In response to this Bucky stills his hand on their cocks but continues to hold them in a tight fist. " _Doll,_ you're gonna kill me," he groans. "You should be nice to me, you know..." He runs a finger along his balls, making him shiver. "Since I get to decide when you cum, after all. Do you want to cum?"

"Oh god, yes, Bucky, please!" A warm sensation is pooling in his gut and seems to be coiling around his veins like a snake. To be dramatic, it feels as if he's transforming into a supernova and is about to shoot off in the space that he neglects looking at through his telescope. 

"Please what?" 

"Please let me cum! It feels so good, Buck. It's so much, too much," Steve babbles, hands scrambling for purchase on Bucky's shoulders and lightly scratching the skin there with his blunt nails as he pants. He's trying to move in Bucky's hand again of his own accord but it's to no avail. 

"It's okay. I've got you. I want to give you everything." He relaxes his grip on their cocks and starts moving his fist up and down again, much to Steve's delight. "You can cum, Steve. Whenever you're ready."

As if that sentence magically shatters the something inside that was holding him back Steve begins to sob against Bucky's chest and his balls start to draw up, skinny thighs quivering as well. "I'm gonna- _oh god!_ " Steve cries out, fat tears rolling down his cheeks and slipping onto Bucky's heated skin.

"Cum for me, darling."

His first spurt of semen shoots out and Bucky aims his cock so that it lands on Steve's t-shirt that's still on, effectively staining the material with damp splotches. The intense relief that is spilling out of him leaves Steve virtually incapacitated, head back and mouth agape with no sound coming out as more white ropes land on his chest. It feels _so good,_ and Bucky is sitting there watching him with an air of possession while he works Steve through his intense orgasm. When the last blob of cum escapes from his slit he's boneless, and all he wants to do is fully collapse against Bucky's chest in exhaustion and bliss but he has to lean back and make sure that Bucky gets to experience that euphoria too after so generously sharing it with him.

Bucky lets go of his overly-sensitive cock (thank goodness) and gives himself a few more fierce pumps with his fist and then he's cumming as well with a drawn-out moan, long streaks of spunk erupting from his cock and covering his stomach. One spurt even comes to rest on Steve's shirt, mixing with the mess of cum that's already there and has definitely ruined the top. They're both breathing heavily after their orgasms and Steve wouldn't be surprised if he was visibly teetering back and forth on Bucky's lap, suddenly so tired and filled with the urge to go to sleep. Steve voices this in a murmur. 

"Yeah, okay. We should probably get this shirt off you, though," he points out, going to pull it over his head while Steve casually lifts his arms to help. "Sorry about that, by the way." Steve just lazily shakes his head, not wanting to spare the energy to tell Bucky that he could care less about the shirt. Once it's discarded and tossed to a random spot on the concrete floor Bucky then asks, "Is there anything to get us cleaned up down here?" 

Steve groans. _Ugh._ Bucky was asking him way too many questions right now. His pleasure-addled body was having a hard time keeping itself upright, much less forming actually coherent responses. Clean-up was the last thing on his mind, content with how he was, but then again, he wasn't the one who had semen sticking to his naked chest. Lifting a weak hand he pathetically gestures towards the same corner of the couch where he got the lube from. 

"It's good to know that you're such a lazy kitten after you cum," Bucky remarks, not unkindly. That one earns him a pointed glare from Steve, but he doesn't seem to care, instead reaching over to dig through the couch with one hand while the other strokes Steve's side to keep him balanced. Bucky pulls out a small package of baby wipes with pale blue squiggles on them and gets one out but rather than handing one to Steve he takes it upon himself to start wiping his dick for him with a gentle, steady hand. The area's still a bit sensitive, so when he's being cleaned there he winces and Bucky quickly apologizes. Once he's done, Steve asks if he can return the favor and holds his hand out for a wipe. Bucky obliges, but not before looking a little surprised at the offer. Wiping off the brunette's chest is oddly soothing, Steve realizes, as he moves the wipe over the flat planes of his pecs, the toned valleys of his obliques, and the porcelain divots of his hips. Everything about him is just so perfect and cleaning Bucky's body also gives him a chance to marvel at it without shame, especially when Bucky's eyes are closed in relaxation.

After the soiled wipes are thrown away and their underwear is back on Steve takes the opportunity to crawl back onto Bucky's lap and curl into his chest (okay, maybe like a kitten would), content with going to sleep right where he was. "Do you want to sleep here?" Bucky asks, a husky tone to his voice.

"Mhm. With you," Steve mumbles.

"Okay." He wraps his hands behind his back and with Steve still in his lap he positions himself so that he's now laying horizontally on the couch on his back, Steve's body coming to drape over him and cling to his left side like a koala for warmth. Bucky absent-mindedly combs his fingers through Steve's hair while he begins to blinks tiredly, nuzzling into his pectoral. 

Fighting the urge to fall asleep before he can get it out, Steve whispers in a quiet voice, "Thank you, Bucky."

In response, Bucky wraps the arm around his back tighter and growls out " _Mine"_ in his ear before kissing the shell of it, sending a shiver down Steve's spine. He doesn't say anything back, but as he is lulled into a peaceful sleep he finds himself not being able to agree more. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! Should I start adding gifs to go along with this story? Let me know! If you find any that you think would fit please send them to me:)


	9. The Boy Next Door

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Midnight and the moon is out / Careful you might hurt yourself. Pleasure leads to pain / To me they're both the same." - Miley Cyrus, 'Give Me What I Want'
> 
> "Even the usual must have its limits." - Franz Kafka

On the couch in the basement they were a tangle of limbs, sleeping in the comfort of each other's warmth and embrace. The heating system that ran through the rest of the apartments also luckily ran through the basement, so the gelidity of December wasn't that brutal, but when the occasional chill came in through the various chinks of the lower level's armor the boys simply clung to each other tighter, relying on the simmering passion of their spent bodies to heat the other like a furnace would. 

Steve was slowly awaken by the genteel movements of Bucky unsuccessfully trying to put his clean shirt on him without disturbing his slumber. It had to be early in the morning, Steve presumed, as the small window embedded in the concrete at the top of the wall showed that it was still dark outside and that the stars were still shining. Bucky offered him a sheepish look when he blinked up at him blearily and moved to sit upright, pulling the rest of Bucky's white shirt down over his body that almost reached to his knees. His blue jeans and jacket were the next items to be handed to him while on the couch in a silent proposition to get dressed. While he did so Bucky tugged on his own black jeans, the only clothing item on his body at the moment. His toned, bare chest looked pale in the white light of the room and the absence of color from the night and his nipples were pebbled due to the cool air. Steve's tired brain felt horrible that Bucky gave him his shirt and that he would now have to walk outside like that, but he figured that if Bucky truly wanted his shirt he could've just made Steve walk outside in his puffer jacket alone. Besides, Bucky didn't get cold. 

When he was done getting dressed he rose from the soft material of the couch on wobbly feet, body still apparently taxed from their activities last night and brain too tired to maintain proper balance. He nodded at Bucky to signify that he was ready to head outside and walk back and in return he got a sympathetic smile, the brunette's arms crossed against his chest after putting his paperweight in his back pocket. Next, before Steve could figure out what was happening, he was being lifted up off his feet by the older boy and positioned as to where he was being carried bridal-style in strong arms out the door of the lounge. He began to protest that he was fine and didn't need to be carried like a baby but Bucky just shushed him and shot him a look that Steve didn't dare argue with. After melting into Bucky's arms, Steve found that he didn't want to argue about it, after all. Usually, if someone tried to take advantage of his small size he would become upset, mostly because it was to make fun of how different it was or show how easy it was to manipulate him into doing what someone else wanted. But with Bucky, it didn't feel that way whatsoever. Yes, it was easy for him to manipulate his body, but he never did it in a way that wasn't also nurturing or comforting to the smaller boy. If anything, Steve found himself wishing that Bucky would do it more often because it made him feel like there were actually advantages to the slender, fickle frame that he was born with, ones that the brunette could perhaps enjoy, too. 

Lost in his thoughts, Steve barely felt the iciness of the outside breeze as Bucky crept through the snow in the courtyard, or noticed that Bucky was staring down at him for the duration of the walk back, a gaze composed of adoration and peace. The red under his attentive eyes brought an intensity to his look, but other than that, the lines on his face were smooth and unworried, his brow relaxed and his bubble-gum shaded lips slightly parted. In a short amount of time they were in front of Steve's apartment door, Bucky gingerly setting him on his feet on the shabby red hallway carpet. Steve had to fight the childish disapproval bubbling in his throat of being put down and not being able to feel the grounding weight of Bucky's body against him to let him know that he was actually _here_ and had touched his skin in the most intimate of ways not too long ago. Steve didn't want the intimate connection between them to be broken by parting for the night and wanted to be able to nuzzle against his chest whenever he wanted. A firm hand clutched his left shoulder to steady him on the ground. "I'm sorry I can't put you into bed," Bucky apologized, going to cross his arms across his chest again. If Steve were to feel his skin it would be frozen to the touch. 

"It's— _yawn_ —fine." Steve didn't even bat an eyelash at the implications of his apology. "Thanks for, you know, carrying me upstairs and stuff. You big softie," he joked, leaning against him. "Goodnight, Buck. Or good morning, I'm not really sure."

Bucky hummed before pressing a loving kiss against his temple and lightly pushing him towards his apartment, straying towards his own door. When he got inside (the door was, unsurprisingly, unlocked), Steve went directly to his room and collapsed on his twin bed, neglecting to take off his clothes again before falling asleep. Exhaustion vibrated in his very bones, and that was perfectly fine if that was the price that he had to pay for what he and Bucky did together. The sun came up fifteen minutes after they had made it back to their apartments.

❅❅❅

It was a good thing that it was now the weekend, because Steve had slept in until eleven o'clock that morning. When he finally arose from his bed, got dressed, and trudged into the kitchen for something to eat for a late breakfast his mother was sitting on the couch with a newspaper in hand, eyebrow raised up in question. "Did you come home last night?" She asks.

"Yeah, Mom. Didn't you hear me come in? I think you might've been in the bathroom or something," Steve lies, an unaffected look on his face. It was too easy to lie to his mother now, especially since she was becoming even more unaware of what was going on in his life, too focused on packets of legal proceedings and bottles of Jack Daniel's to make an effort. Even if he was caught in his lie, the effect of the disappointment on his mother's face was starting to wane on him. He was pretty disappointed with what was going on in his home life, as well. 

"Oh. I must've. Well, anyways, what are your plans for today?"

Steve pretends to mull it over, nodding his head back and forth like an idea was brewing in a storm cloud above him and he was entranced by the process. In reality, he just knows he wants to see Bucky again tonight, and the wave of want that presents canopies his entire day, leaving only spare time to be filled in his room before then. Time itself had become a resolute blur that just ticked the moments until darkness finally blanketed Los Alamos each night. If anything, he shouldn't be allowed to have any plans after what had happened with Brock, but Steve presumes that Sarah has left his punishment up to the good lord himself and relinquished any responsibility on her part. Not that that was a bad thing. Steve doubts that God can punish him anymore than he already was, and if he can, he just still needs to be able to see Bucky, is all. Then, no matter what happened, he would truly be okay and be able to push through whatever came his way, hell or high water. 

"I'll probably just finish Romeo and Juliet. The book that we're reading for English. Then later tonight I might hang out with one of my friends that I met that lives in one of the apartments." 

Steve decided that there was no harm in telling Sarah about the generalities of his and Bucky's "friendship". She would never delve deeper into its inner-working parts, probably glad that Steve was getting worthwhile human interaction from somewhere when she couldn't provide it, and he would simply be able to navigate around telling her about the facts of Bucky not wearing shoes outside or only going out during the night or not going to school like other kids do. In a perfect world, Steve would be able to tell his mother that Bucky was his boyfriend and she would congratulate him with a warm hug, asking him what he looked like and what he did in his free time to make sure that he was good for her son. She would pester him about when she was finally going to be able to meet him and Bucky would come over for dinner, perhaps with a rose bouquet in hand and a crisp button-up shirt. Steve would plead with Sarah beforehand to make something that would be easy on Bucky's stomach after the Zoch's incident. His mother would commend Bucky on how polished he looked and he would thank her with an award-winning smile, going to peck Steve's cheek as he hung up his coat on a hook, stubble tickling the blonde's sensitive skin. His mother would beam at the display, delighted that her only son was finally happy. But alas, it was not a perfect world. Not in the least. 

Sarah hums in approval at his plans, looking up from the newspaper with a pleased expression. "Oh, you've made a friend? That's so great, Steve. I knew it would happen sooner or later. What's his name?" Her bubbly tone sounds genuine, and Steve catches a smile curling the ends of his mouth. Maybe this was a start.

"His name is James." 

❅❅❅

By the time he had finished Romeo and Juliet and learned of the Capulet's and Montague's promises to do better while languidly leaning on his pillow it was six o'clock and dusk was well on its way to settling over the horizon. The light posts outside transformed into fluorescent beacons, sucking in the navy space around them and replacing it with an aura of a muted yellow hue while the last few remnants of clouds were pulled apart like cotton candy and dispersed across the nearly-obsidian skyline. It reminded him of the sweet treats from the food carts that were placed around the Los Alamos county fair his mother and father used to take him to when he was a kid, white blinking lights projecting all the different desserts and causing spots in his vision. He would split a cotton candy with his mom every time, not being able to finish one by himself at the ripe age of seven. Maybe he could take Bucky to the fair when the heat of summertime came around and the seagulls wove in-between the attractions for food scraps. They could ride the Ferris wheel together and if they were stopped at the highest point they could kiss each other to distract from the high altitude, like Steve heard his male classmates brag about years prior. 

Setting aside the play on his bedside table to return to the library later, Steve positions himself so that he is sitting up in bed and facing the wall, his legs crossed like one would do if they were meditating. The Morse code sheet that he made for himself is haphazardly hanging on the wall with Scotch tape, and he squints at it to decipher how he taps out what he wants to say, not desiring to seem foolish and take a long time to convey his message. Bucky is basically a pro at Morse code at this point, sending back messages more efficiently than Steve ever could. _He had to have studied the sheet for such a long time_ , he muses. After a couple of minutes of reviewing he's ready to start the conversation, and with a deep breath in, Steve knocks once in greeting.

Almost immediately a fist thuds against the other side of the wall, and no matter how many times it happens, it never fails to make Steve grin out of pure joy that this is the special thing that they get to keep between them and far away from the outside world. 

B-A-S-E-M-E-N-T-?, the younger boy starts. S-P-E-C-I-A-L. He had thought of what they could do together tonight earlier today while reading Romeo and Juliet, and to say he was excited was an understatement. What he had come up with was such a perfect way for them to be always intimate, even if they weren't physically together; an unbreakable bond. Steve just hoped that Bucky was as enthusiastic about it as he was. 

The response of O-F--C-O-U-R-S-E is relayed through the barrier of the beige plaster practically instantaneously with the deft brushes and raps of Bucky's knuckles. Steve's bed springs creak in protest as he hastily maneuvers himself off of his bed, blonde hair flopping down in his face as he does so, and towards the living room so that he can pull on his winter boots and grab his jacket from the hook that hasn't been touched since Officer Zemo came by to visit his mother. There's no need to tell Sarah that he's leaving the house since she yelled to him through his door sometime in the afternoon that she had picked up a shift at work by the grace of God and wouldn't be back home till later, which was completely fine by Steve. Let God bless her all He wanted to. 

When Steve reaches the lounge, lungs slightly burning from the exertion of jogging here faster than he should, Bucky has already opened the door with the key and is sitting on the couch in a position similar to the one he was in last night, a red and blue flannel shirt hanging loosely off of his shoulders. He blushes at the reminder and Bucky is perfunctory to rise from the couch and go to stand in front of him, grasping both of his hands in a display that is akin to what couples do when they are at the altar. The older boy's hair is tousled, Steve notices, and strands are sticking to each other regardless of what side of his part they land on. His eyes look tired and puffy in the flaxen light and Steve considers telling him that he should go get some rest and that they could hang out another time, but Bucky speaks first, his very voice composed of gravel and jocularity. It's extremely distracting. 

"So, what did you want to do down here, my sweet?" Bucky asks, reminiscent of the night before. 

Steve clears his throat, straightening his back and standing up taller to shake him from his previous thoughts. "I had an idea. Close your eyes." 

Bucky obliges, a small smile gracing his lips. Steve lets go of Bucky's hands gently and reaches into his jacket pocket where he pulls out the small hunting knife previously used to threaten mirrors and stab unsuspecting trees. Taking a deep breath in through his nose to steel himself, Steve then lets the smooth, jagged silver tip of the knife bite against the flesh of his thumb. He suddenly presses down much harder and a sharp slice is etched into his skin, producing more blood than he thought it would. Understandably, since he's never done this before. Steve grimaces silently through the pain, knowing that it will be worth it in the end. Looking up, Steve says, "Let's make a pact. You and me."

At this point Bucky's eyes have flown wide open, transfixed on Steve's thumb and the mess of red that is slowly running down his palm. He seems to be frozen in dread, a grimace of his own plastered on his face. There is no blue left in his eyes, pupils blown as much as they physically can be. 

Steve holds out his bleeding hand and the hunting knife in invitation, taking a step towards him to try to allay any possible fears that Bucky may be having about the pain. "It's okay. It only hurts for a second -- really. It's no big deal..."

The older boy immediately recoils away from Steve and stumbles backwards on bare feet on the concrete floor, going to grab at his stomach after an ominous growling sound emanates from it in a low, guttural tone, sounding almost exactly like what happened the second time they had met in the courtyard. Upon staggering back Bucky's head suddenly tilts down in a fluid motion to stare at the maroon puddle of Steve's blood that's slowly but surely pooling outwards from the incessant dripping in various spots as the blonde trembles out of muted aftershocks and some uncertainty. Bucky appears to be mesmerized by the sight; Steve doesn't catch even the minutest flutter of his eyelids. 

All at once, Bucky drops to the ground in an impressive display of flexibility on all fours, hovering feverishly over the puddle as if it was a new species that he wanted to be the first to discover. A broken sound catches in his throat which sounds akin to how one would try to dry heave in vain or hiccup before puking up the contents of their stomach. The noise soon transforms into a ravenous, drawn-out snarl and Steve has no choice but to watch in shock as Bucky begins licking his blood off of the concrete floor with a long and deft tongue, the pink muscle quickly being stained scarlet. Steve's body won't communicate with him in terms of movement; to be fair, he isn't sure his brain is sending any messages to it either, completely empty and currently with the only purpose of silently taking in the horror movie scene that is happening in front of him. He's leisurely kitten-licking the dirty and blood-stained area with the fervor one has with a dripping ice-cream cone on a hot, summer day. 

"B-Bucky?" Steve's voice trembles with worry after the few moments it takes for the hazy, lethargic fog to seep out of his head and onto the floor along with the blood. 

When he finally looks up, the nape of his neck curling into the first knob of his spine, Bucky truly looks transformed. The most prominent thing about him is his eyes that now have burning embers inside of them surrounding the black, bottomless wells of his pupils. The beauty of the icy blue that Steve has come to admire is gone, completely replaced with the vivid reds and oranges of hellfire that lick at the limbs of sinners. A fitting way to describe them would be _demonic._ The vivacity of his eyes almost distracts from the sharp, alabaster fangs that have taken the place of his canines and are presently pushing into the plush skin of his bottom lip. Almost. Bucky's mouth is drawn back in a snarl when he looks up at the younger boy, putting the fangs on full display and making them glint in the sparse light. His expression is -- _tortured. Savage._ Dirt from the ground is smeared onto his face. He barely even looks human anymore.

In response to being addressed Bucky quivers with ferocity, seeming to have two powerful personalities inside and an internal battle with himself on which one gets to come out and answer. He then hisses at Steve and arches his back, appearing to be ready to pounce and on the verge of attack. **"Go away!"** The deep, devilish baritone of his voice booms. But Steve can't move from his spot, joints painfully locked and rusting under the scrutiny of Bucky's possessed gaze. He is terrified, there's no doubt about that, and while his brain still isn't communicating with his body, another part of it is that he can't tear his eyes away from the older boy, can't possibly fathom what Bucky, the quirky boy with no shoes and an intoxicating smile, is doing hunched over a puddle of Steve's blood and having razor-sharp teeth that have retracted from his peony-colored gums. His baby blue eyes start to well with tears for the petrifying display. 

Bucky is now glaring at him furiously with his perdition-filled eyes, a hand curled into something resembling a claw shape scratching against the concrete, and once more he repeats, **"Go!"** , but Steve still doesn't move, stunned by the way the demonic distortion of his voice ices over his nerves and stops his breathing, almost spiraling him into an asthma attack. Bucky then suddenly jolts up from his crouched position on the ground, turns swiftly towards the door, and starts running wildly towards it, making a break for it and leaving Steve utterly frozen in the makeshift lounge as the loud slaps of his soles against the stone floor ring in his ears. 

Once Steve separates from the stupefaction that rendered his brain and body useless (partly thanks to the fact that the space in front of him is now empty and devoid of horrors besides the still present pool of blood on the floor that has been smeared with the long licks of a tongue), he starts to sprint after Bucky himself, fragile heart and lungs heaving with the intensity of the task and jacket swishing in the breeze. The concrete walls and floors of the basement hallway close in on him and it makes him feel like he's in a prison, chasing after another rogue inmate to stop something terrible from happening before the guards get to him first. 

The stairs out of the basement are no easy feat for his paper-doll being and when he emerges from them, small sheets of snow that were resting on the steps now disturbed by his erratic boot prints, Steve tries in vain to gulp in the biting December air while he frantically searches for Bucky's form in the courtyard. His vision is starting to get spotty, though, wavering in focus, and it doesn't help that he has to place his hands on his knees to keep from collapsing in the snow or that his inhaler is back in the apartment sitting on the counter. The steady billowing of the wind around him stuffs his ears with cotton and leaves him with no advantage of sound, either. 

Eventually, Steve _finally_ spots Bucky expressly by the golden glow of his eyes sticking out like a sore thumb in the ebony night. He is relieved that he is still in the courtyard, hovering in the V of a nearby tree's branch in a rigid position. The amount of strength and limberness that it must've taken to get up there in such a short period of time nearly blindsides the younger boy. He's about to yell out for him, the "b" consonant beginning to bubble out of his mouth for a pathetic shout of "Bucky!", but before he can do so rapid movement farther down the sidewalk alongside the trees and bushes catches his attention and renders him mute. It's Mr. Phillips' wife, Solana, and their small dog walking hurriedly down the path, her tall heels clacking against the semi-slushy pavement as she does so and rivaling with her constant exasperated huffing. Mr. Philips' comes into view next, speed-walking after her in leisure clothes and muttering something akin to "God damnit, Solana!" _They must've gotten into another fight_ , Steve surmises. 

Bucky is still crouched in the tree at this point, watching the same thing Steve is but with a more attentive eye and better vantage point. Only his head tilts to follow her movements as she gets closer and closer to being below him on the sidewalk, craning his neck like a possessed doll would in a low-budget thriller, one fluid motion throughout. She hasn't seemed to notice him, yet. The small dog on the studded pink leash trotting along ahead of her comes to a abrupt stop below the tree and begins to bark in earnest; it's a high-pitched sound that is grating to the ears and mixed with it is occasional growling and whimpering. It isn't long before it's too late. The dog's cries do nothing to halt Solana in her mission, only beckon her closer to find out what's the matter, and when she gets near enough for a reprimand she's right under the offender in question and Bucky swiftly drops from the branch, effectively tackling Solana down to the cold cement of the sidewalk and laying her out so that she's on her back and he's hovering over her, pale arms tensely placed at either side of her head. 

The whole world seems to freeze for a moment. The breeze is no longer dragging the snow across the courtyard in wisps and Steve's heart is no longer beating, convinced that it should stay a numbly organ as to not draw attention to himself. His mouth is agape and he can't seem to close it; his mind is screaming at him to say something and attempt to end this madness but his vocal cords can't seem to manage it. All he can do is stay in the shadow of the apartment block looming above him and watch and listen as the globe begins to spin again and Bucky, without preamble, harshly wrenches Mrs. Phillips' neck to the side and stabs into her jugular vein with his sharp teeth, making the first wave of blood spurting out of the wound spray onto the pavement. She shrieks in unimaginable pain. What follows is the sickening sound of Bucky suckling on the cut that has quickly turned into a cavernous gash due to the hurried movements of his fangs. The pressure that his mouth puts on the gushing wound as he drinks makes a horrible squelching noise, akin to someone's boots being caught in the mud. Paired with this is the ever-present barking of the dog and Mrs. Phillips' softening mewls and moans of agony. 

When Mr. Phillips catches up to his wife and sees the atrocity that is happening to her ( _everything is happening so fast)_ he immediately goes to try pull Bucky off of her, holding both of his hands out as to grip him by the shoulders and pull him backwards. He is just a kid, after all, and the feat should prove to be easy by looking at the lack of color in his skin that would result from good eating and proper nutrition. The mistake he makes is coming towards Bucky's flank instead of from behind him, and when he's close enough to grab him, the boy _that is clearly not just a boy_ swings his left arm around to place his open palm on Mr. Phillips' chest and forcefully shoves him, sending him flying backwards and into the trunk of the nearby tree which renders him unconscious. Throughout all of this Bucky doesn't even lift his head, too mesmerized by his ministrations on the wound that has rivulets of blood sluggishly running down the side of her neck and onto the snow. 

Listless minutes pass while Bucky finishes his meal, the sound of skin being molded like clay with the lubricant of gore ever present in Steve's ears. He just stands there and watches him, feet frozen into the remaining ice on the ground, and eventually the nerves tightening and constricting around his stomach like a rope along with the gruesomeness in front of him causes him to empty the contents of his stomach onto the snow, the intensity of the upheaval sending him falling to his knees and spiraling into an asthma attack from the lack of oxygen, one that he can't even register is happening. The loud sounds of Steve's gasps for air get Bucky's attention and he lifts his head up from Mrs. Phillips' body, twisting it so that he is looking at Steve in the eyes. His golden orbs are still piercing. There's copious amounts of blood smeared all over his lower face, as if he was a baby that had made a mess of their cake at a birthday party. Steve should be scared that his eyes are on him now, it could mean that he's his next target, after all, but the burning in his lungs and the clouding of his brain make all other possible problems obsolete. The expression that Bucky makes at him could be closely defined as being remorseful or apologetic before he sharply rises and starts running toward the parking garages of the apartments in the distance, jumping over them with ease and disappearing into the night as Steve hovers over a puddle of his own vomit, struggling to compose himself and catch his breath so that he doesn't pass out and lay among the other two bodies in the snow.

Eventually, after what feels like ten minutes of slowly and steadily breathing out of his nose while his nostrils fill with the foul scent of Mrs. Phillips' _ripe_ _corpse_ and the vomit below him, Steve shakily stands up and immediately waddles over to the brick wall of the apartment building so that he can collapse against it and use it as an aid in getting back to his apartment. As he does so, walking along the perimeter of the building as if he couldn't find his way otherwise, Steve looks back at the scene of savagery behind him with a grimace. _It had all started with him wanting to get closer to Bucky. This is what it had turned into._ God was punishing him for being selfish, punishing him for partaking in the sins of the flesh with another boy. He should've known better when he said that all he needed was Bucky by his side. Steve was going to be dropped in an abyss of hell-fire, and the devil was giving him a sneak-peek of what was to come, turning the people he loved most into monsters and killing others just for his own amusement and Steve's suffering. Steve tried to clear these panic-stricken thoughts out of his head that was already cracking with pressure from trying to understand what just happened. His asthma wasn't out of the woods yet, and the last thing he needed was to stir up another bout of asphyxiation and crack his head on the wall on his way down to the ground. 

When Steve finally makes it back into his apartment, crawling up the stairs like a toddler with fat tears rolling down his cheeks, he plasters himself to the back of the front door and blindly grabs for his inhaler on the kitchen counter to the left of him, letting out a shaky sigh of relief as the cool medicine ices over his throat and travels down into his airways when he takes a long puff. He shucks off his puffer jacket and lets it fall to the floor in a heap. The tears are coming out in torrents now, the agony and fear of the situation settling in. Bucky had killed someone and knocked someone else out cold. Bucky had torn someone's throat out with his teeth alone. Bucky had wanted to hurt Steve, but at the last minute, decided to go for someone else. He had wanted to rip Steve's—his _boyfriend's—_ throat out at first. Loud sobs fill the apartment as the blonde starts to wail. He is sure that a cunt is sprouting between his legs, just like Brock had prophesized, but he can't find the energy to care, instead letting out the cries and whimpers of who he truly is inside: a dumbly virginial and weak fifteen-year-old boy whose parents are going through a divorce and whose only friend had just abandoned him.

Walking to his mother's room in hopes of comfort and an outlet to talk about the tragedy that had occurred, Steve whispers, "Momma?" He hasn't called her that since he was in primary school and his voice cracks as he says it. Her door is open, and as Steve repeats his sentiment he walks into her room to find that she's passed out on the bed in her blue nightgown, an empty bottle of wine and a glass hovering on the precipice of her bedside table. A police siren in the distance comes close enough to finally be heard by Steve's ears, as well as an ambulance. _Someone must've went outside, then._

Steve almost thinks that no one is going to answer when he picks up the phone to make a call, now-bandaged thumb mindlessly rubbing against the dial numbers of the phone and making a clicking sound due to the latex strip. He's sitting on the floor, leaning back against the kitchen cabinets while a blanket is draped over his legs that are brought up to his chest in hopes of getting himself to stop shivering. Deep down, he knows that it's not from the cold. Eventually, a very tired-sounding voice croaks on the other end of the line. "Hello?" It's a woman. 

"Hi... Is my dad there?" His voice is the epitome of childlike fear after a particularly bad nightmare.

There's silence for a moment, akin to the absolute stillness of Steve's apartment; his sniffles and coughs are amplified in the darkened space. Indistinguishable voices bubble in the background, too quiet for him to hear, before his dad gets on the phone. "Hello?"

"Dad? Can I talk to you? Just for a minute?" Steve knows that he has to open with the fact that it won't be a long conversation so that Joseph Rogers won't try to coerce him into calling him at some other time. If he did, the conversation would never happen. 

"Sure, pal. What is it? What's wrong?" 

And well, it's been such a _fucking_ long time since someone has asked Steve Rogers that, the question of what is bothering him now and what _has been_ bothering him for over five months. His brain processes the question, knows that he's supposed to answer in a timely manner, but so many things that have gone wrong lately come stampeding to the forefront of his mind with a cacophony of unmeasured chaos and before he can let any of them out he begins to cry again, much too overwhelmed for coherent words besides, "I dunno." 

"What?" His father asks. 

Steve hiccups back a sob and clears his throat before speaking, although it isn't much help. "Do you think... Is there-is there such a thing as evil?"

"Huh?"

"Can people be evil? Is that true? I-is that real?" 

There's a brief pause before he answers back, "What are you talking about, pal? I don't know what you're talking about... Did something happen?" 

_What is he supposed to say?_ He would want nothing more than to spill to his dad (or to anyone, for that matter) the paralyzing fear that evil has seeped into his life into the form of someone that he cares about because that person tackled someone in the courtyard with superhuman strength and feasted on their blood with sharp fangs not too long ago, but he can't without seeming absolutely insane, especially over the phone to his father who barely talks to him otherwise, so he opts to stay silent. 

His father's voice grows anxious. "Where are you getting this? From your mother? All her religious crap?"

"No..." 

"Jesus Christ -- don't listen to that shit, okay?"

Steve's heart is quickly sinking. "N-no, that's not-"

But his father isn't listening, obviously already triggered by some past conflict between him and his mom. In the background he can hear him angrily talking to the woman he's supposedly staying with, saying something akin to 'She's filling his head with all this crap!' Then, into the phone he says, "You know what? Steve, listen, put your mother on the phone, okay? I wanna talk to her..." 

"Um, she's...she's not here." It would only create so many more problems if Steve told the truth, that his mother was currently passed out on her bed wine-drunk.

"Well, please have her call me when she gets back, alright?" A beat passes when Steve doesn't say anything in return, too distracted by the hopelessness of the call. He should've never made it in the first place. "Okay?"

He makes one last desperate attempt. "Dad?"

Joseph cuts him off in an exasperated breath. "Steve, I want you to get that crap out of your head, okay? Your mother just...she has problems...and I'm gonna talk to her. So, I don't want to hear _any_ more about this, alright?"

"Yeah..."

His father's voice softens once more at hearing his complacency. "Okay. Good. You have a good night, pal. I love you. And I'm sorry about the last couple months, but I'll see you real soon, okay? I promise. Maybe next weekend or something."

"Okay," Steve whispers, a building sob making the back of his throat burn and feel pinched, his watery eyes making the dark apartment even less discernable. He says "I love you too" before hanging up the phone and banging his head against the kitchen cabinets, leaving him exactly how he was before: completely alone. 

❅❅❅

Outside of Steve's bedroom window the lights of police cars flash. The last time he looked out of it there was a group of onlookers huddled around the crime scene, watching as yellow police tape was placed around the perimeter and Anders was being ushered into an ambulance via stretcher. Solana's body was already gone at that point, the only thing proving that it was previously there being the pools of blood . Steve's using the light filtering in to look at the note that Bucky had written him a few days ago, the one that says _'I must be gone and live, or stay and die',_ tracing over the crinkled folds of the paper with his bandaged thumb. Steve is looking at it curled up on his bed before rising out of his comfortable nest of blankets and finally steeling himself and raising his trembling hand to the wall. He hesitates, then knocks forcefully, creating more pain for the chapped skin of his knuckles. His heart is racing as he anxiously waits. Nothing. Steve turns away from the wall, and maybe he's relieved that Bucky didn't answer. That is, until a tentative knock eventually sounds from the other side. _So he came back._ _What does that mean?_ Steve is determined to find out, bless his little lion cub heart, and he sure as hell isn't having this conversation through a wall, so he goes and knocks on Bucky's apartment door, already dressed in his sleep pants. 

When Bucky answers the door (which is a surprise in itself), the most prominent thing about him that Steve notices is that he looks like he usually does, only visibly healthier, bright skin free of under-toned discoloration. There's no hell-fire in his eyes, only the roiling waters of the ocean as he stares at Steve. His bare, rippled chest is on display, showing no signs of surgery scars or internal organs getting ready to burst out of infected gashes. He hasn't opened his mouth yet, though, so Steve can't tell if the alabaster fangs have went away as well. 

"Hi," Bucky greets with an air of shyness, keeping a tight grip on the door frame as though he expects this encounter to be short-lived. No fangs, either. 

"Can I come in?" Steve asks while messing with the hem of his shirt, tugging it down. The brunette smiles warily, seemingly unsure of the proposition, but eventually nods and moves to the side so that he can enter. Steve doesn't move forward, though. "You have to say it." His tone is serious. It's what Bucky made him do the first time he came into his house, after all, but Bucky's smile quickly fades upon hearing it. 

"You can come in," he mutters.

Bucky shuts the door and closely follows behind him as Steve enters his apartment and walks into the hall with caution, seeing his place for the first time. It's practically desolate. There's barely any furniture besides a beat-up mattress laying in the living room against the middle of the wall without a sheet and a wooden card table in the kitchen with various trinkets littered across it. Other belongings, such as clothes, are strewn about the floor in disorganized piles. The worn-out steamer trunk and luggage that were brought up the first night they arrived here are heaped on top of each other in a corner. Steve takes it all in silently, not looking at Bucky, who is intently looking at him and trying to gauge his reaction with focused eyes. It doesn't matter what he thinks of Bucky's apartment, anyways. There are more pressing matters at hand. "Are you a vampire?" He blurts out quietly. It's been scratching against the confines of his skull ever since he saw Bucky's fangs, stemming from collected knowledge of old Hollywood movies and comic books and as ridiculous as the question sounds, he needs to get an honest answer from the boy—or thing—in front of him.

"I...I need blood to live. Yes." He glances down at his bare feet. 

Steve tilts his head to look up at him. "Are you... _dead_?" 

"No." A beat passes. Then, "Can't you tell?" A sad smile graces Bucky's lips. 

"But...how old are you? Really."

"I'm sixteen, Stevie. But I've been sixteen for...a very long time." 

Steve glances around the apartment warily, noticing that something ( _or someone)_ is missing when Bucky reveals information about his age. "Where's your dad?" 

Bucky's expression then transforms into one of guilt. He runs his hand through his hair, musing it. "He, uh, he wasn't my dad. His name was Alexander."

As Steve nods he walks over to the old card table and starts to inspect all of the novelties clustered on top of it. It looks like a collection of strange, worn-out toys supposedly borrowed from all kinds of different eras, some looking like ancient games or puzzles that the Indian tribes would play with huddled among fires. Steve picks one up -- it's a vintage, interlocking wooden cube, almost like a Rubik's Cube from an earlier age, he muses. There are faded Russian letters painted on the sides in black strokes from a thick brush. "What are all these?" 

"I like puzzles," Bucky replies and shrugs, somber. He guesses it should have been obvious, the way that Bucky was so engrossed in his Rubik's Cube when he brought it out into the courtyard that he couldn't seem to take his eyes off of it.

Setting it down with a gentle hand, Steve's eyes are drawn to a dog-eared, cracking, black and white photo strip tossed in among the toys, and he opts to pick that up instead, careful as to not bend the film more. It is a series of four images shot inside what looks like an old photo-booth, probably circa 1940. There are various poses of Bucky in a white undershirt and another boy in a neat sweater who looks to be around sixteen in front of a curtain detailed with swathes of tassels. Bucky looks exactly the same age as he is now, and he and the boy look playful and happy to be around each other, embracing and smiling. When Steve turns the photo strip over there's words on the back: _Alexander Pierce and James "Bucky" Barnes, 1943 ✗._ Bucky sees him looking at this but doesn't say anything, just staring at him. Steve is starting to feel very uncomfortable now, seeing photographical evidence that James Buchanan Barnes hasn't aged a _damn day_ since 1943, forty years ago, and wants to leave. He's putting the picture strip down and glancing towards the door, but there's just one more thing he has to know. "Did you kill Scottie?" His voice is so quiet that it's a wonder that Bucky can hear him.

His eyebrows furrow in confusion. "Who?"

"Scottie. Recent graduate from my school," Steve explains. "They found him in the woods a couple of weeks ago, hanging from a tree with all of the... _blood_ drained out of his body." His voice is trembling now and his little hands are starting to ball up in barely-contained fists at his sides as he takes a step closer to him so that they are now two feet apart. He can feel the heat radiating off of his tensed body. "Did you do it, Buck?"

Bucky hesitates, eyes roving across the room for an opportunity to look anywhere besides Steve before he eventually answers in a hushed tone of his own, "N-not necessarily... Not directly, but-"

"You bastard!" Steve cuts him off and exclaims, pathetically hitting a fist against his solid chest while fresh tears simultaneously form at the corners of his sky blue eyes. "You don't even know who he was!"

"Stevie-" He looks and sounds defeated, as if he's already had this dialogue in his head and suffered through the pain of the details and the scenarios where he loses multiple times, but Steve can't bring himself to care about Bucky's feelings in this particular moment. Bucky lifts an arm for what Steve presumes is an attempt to try to console him and embrace him but he backs away quickly in the dark apartment with pieces of cardboard in the windows, not wanting to be touched in the slightest by hands that...hands that- 

"I wanna go home now." 

He starts moving toward the door but Bucky is volant in blocking his exit, a despairing and pained expression on his face that, no matter the current circumstances, immensely hurts Steve to see. Nevertheless, he persists. "I wanna go. Are you gonna let me?" When Bucky doesn't budge, Steve then says with a kind of edge that he's not used to, "What are you gonna do to me, James?"

Obviously stung by this comment and its implications, the brunette's mouth goes slightly agape and he looks up and down at Steve, like he's assessing how easy it would be to manhandle his small, fragile body into doing whatever he wanted it to do, which, in this case, was stay. He eventually steps out of his way, though, and as the blonde is closing the door behind him with an uncomfortably loud slam he hears the boy next door whisper, "I told you we couldn't be friends."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, I actually finished this chapter! I'm so sorry that it took so long.㋛ College life is busy, yo, but thank you for sticking with me. I ♡ you all 3000. (Also the gifs that I added are only showing up if it's on a computer(ง'̀-'́)ง )


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